I have been on quite a journey over the past few weeks. I posted about my journey of faith for my new business venture but nothing would have prepared me for the enormous blow that I received only days after writing an encouraging note that we can know and trust that God hears our prayers.
I had arranged to use a specific venue for our kids holiday adventures and the day before the website was to be launched and all the marketing was to be released, I received an email to say the the facilities would no longer be available for us and our required needs.
As I opened the email and read the words, everything in my world came to a standstill. All the work that I had put in over the past 10 months would come to naught! I felt utterly devastated. And I had made God the center of this venture. I believed that I was born to do this very thing and now the door had been absolutely slammed shut in my face.
That may sound dramatic. After all, I could find another venue. But I had trusted that God had provided everything that I had received so far – why would I be shut down now? Had I heard wrong. Had I deceived myself and I was actually following my own will rather than the will of God??
In my desperate state, I began reading an ancient book called ‘I will lift mine eyes’, published in 1937, but it was referred to in the book that I am still reading by Catherine Marshall, so I knew it would be good.
The author was telling of a story that he was told by a man who’s life had been changed completely by a SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCE.
Here is the exurb;
“I had gone out in a boat near sunset. i was rather drowsy and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep. When I awoke, hours later, the boat was out of sight of land and there was no way for me to determine whether I was north, south or east of the Island. Knowing how quickly a squall can can arise on Lake Superior and how easily a boat is overturned or how drowned bodies never come to the surface in the coldest of all northern waters, I was filled with panic. I started to pray and then I found I couldn’t. And Why? Simply because I wasn’t worthy to pray. My whole past came up before me, a man that did nothing but accumulate money for himself? What would the world loose if I should never return?
“And then I made a promise to God. I promised Him that if He would save me I would devote half of my time to His work, to helping mankind, especially young people. And then the answer came.”
At this point (the author writes), the old gentleman fumbled in his pocket and brought out a picture postcard. it looked exactly like a photograph. It was a pictorial arrangement of a man alone in a rowboat on a lake and above his head were the moon and stars and among the stars one immense star – about ten times the size of the other stars and about one-fourth the size of the moon. I wondered if the Star of Bethlehem could have looked like that.
“This star suddenly appeared I the sky,” he said, pointing to the large star in the picture. “It was an immense star, such as I had never seen before. I was overwhelmed with the mystery and wonder of it, but taking it as a sign, I fixed my eyes upon it and keeping it at the tail of my boat I rowed and rowed without looking around for hours and hours. When I finally did look around I was going straight up the landing pier where I had started. That is all of my story.” he ended abruptly starting to rise.”Keep it in your mind and plant it in your heart, and some day it may bear fruit in your life. How and when I know not, but this I know: What comes from God is eternal. What God has not planted will be rooted up: but what God has planted will bear fruit one hundred fold.”
“Please wait a minute, (the author said). What happened to your afterwards?”
“I merely took an elevator and went to another floor. My life – the regular business and church life – went on as usual, but in an entirely different world. I found myself living thenceforth in a heavenly world where love and peace and happiness were everywhere about me in my life, and my business associates, and yes, with the chance acquaintances I meet upon my travels.” He smiled at me.
“But how did you get up to a higher level?” The author asked
“Its a secret, ” he replied, “a great and wonderful secret. But if you really must know the secret, here it is: HE MAKETH MY FEET LIKE HINDS FEET AND SETTETH ME UPON MY HIGH PLACES”
What are ‘Hinds feet’ you are probably asking? Well, the author asked the same question and he was not given a straight answer. Basically, he was told that he needed to figure it out for himself.
And later he received his revelation.
A deer is very sure-footed, because it places it hind feet exactly where it placed it’s front feet. So it cannot step wrong.
That is how we should be. We should step exactly where God steps, so that we cannot step wrong.
My own personal revelation came soon after this. Although I had made God the center of my venture, in my head, I was not allowing Him to lead my heart. I needed to completely surrender this dream to him and trust that He the will either raise it up again or leave it to lie where it had fallen. To put it literally, I needed to stop being so proud by thinking that I can do it all by myself, even though I was praying about everything. I needed to surrender and see what God could do.
The next day, I felt prompted to contact the Camp Manager again and ask for him to re-consider. I did this, trusting in God for the outcome. I received an email back from him saying that he could in fact accommodate us.
So we were back on track! But it was about nothing that I had done. It was all about what God had done. With my doing, it had fallen flat on it’s face, but with God’s doing, it was raised up again – God’s way.
I learned a huge life lesson – a huge God lesson.
I need to let God step first and I will step after. I can’t just say I’m doing it Gods way. I need to DO it Gods way!
Hinds feet lead to the high places.
We need to make our feet like Hinds feet and God will do the rest.
This is what Jesus meant when He said “Have faith in God.”
Our lips speak the thoughts of our conscious minds but only our hearts speak the thoughts of our unconscious minds.
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.”
By making your feet like ‘Hinds Feet’, you will find that the narrow path of life is not so hard.
I know that I have found an entirely new sense of joy and peace and love and life