Learning to Wade

By Heather Allen –

My first fly-fishing adventure was in the cool, hauntingly still Blue Ridge Mountains. Small shantys scattered along the dirt road followed the bends and twists of the stream, and had their own slow Southern drawl. It would not have been a surprise to cast in time with an impromptu fiddler. Or find myself trailed by an old, mangy mutt.

Yet here, clotheslines flapping, corked moonshine resting on wooden porches, I found a new kind of appreciation for my Maker. My hubby led me straight into this wonderful world of trout and entomology. He had me crawling on hand and knee to the banks so we would not spook fish out of a run. He had me flipping rocks and taking pop quizzes on what insect life I was beholding. And then he would take out a fly he had tied with feathers and thread designed to replicate the insect we looked at, tie it on, and catch a brightly colored Brook Trout.

If I did wade in to release a fish, or to climb one of the enormous boulders that shaped the stream I would be not much deeper than my knees. The river had deeper pockets but they were easily avoided. It was the perfect environment to learn: peaceful wading and stunning scenery.

But the day came when we would leave the South and fish new, fast flowing rivers and my belly kept me off balance. Seeing where I was placing my wader boots became tricky. One hand carried a fly rod the other protectively swaddled my unborn baby. And it felt new and scary and I stepped off a ledge. I bobbed around trying to get my footing. My husband’s ashen face as he ran down the bank trying to rescue me is as sealed in my mind as my own panicky thoughts. Months and an infant later I felt brave enough to try again. The waters were deeper, unfamiliar and fast. I knew I wanted to know how to maneuver through them, but I understood how fast they could take me down.

Jesus invited His disciples into a boat and into a storm and went to sleep. The waves rushed over and they woke Him and asked if He cared that their lives were in jeopardy. I know how those thoughts come when life seems to take a misstep and you fall off the ledge and cannot seem to find your footing. I have laid on my face seeking. Jesus knew there would be a storm. He speaks; the storm ceases. He questions their fear and faith. Wide-eyed and afraid the disciples question, “Who is He?”

And it all comes back to that. How deep I’m willing to wade, the lengths I’m willing to run, the journey I’ll follow Him on will flow from who I believe He is.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1 (KJV).

Follower

By Heather Allen-

I was resting on a floral couch, swirling the ice and water in my cup. Focused on the cubes, I smiled thinking how preferable sitting in my friend’s sun porch was to the lengthy to do list waiting at my doorstep. We swapped kid stories, shared laughs, grimaced over concerns, and then she mentioned something her husband shared at church. My head came up. ‘Being uncomfortable in our situations is not a bad thing”, she went on. “It can mean that God is bringing necessary change”.

I nodded my head as this flowed off her tongue. Not even eighteen hours before I flipped on the radio as the host said, “The solution to your problem lies outside your comfort zone.” The little orange notebook, in my purse, holds these words.

There was a misunderstanding after breakfast. I like the kitchen cleaning to begin when the meal finishes. This morning my timeline caused a bit of conflict. And there were discussions and elevated voices as we tried clarifying and compromising. We found it was not working.

So we sat at the table, the surface still slick with halfhearted washing, me soundlessly praying for the ability to pole-vault out of my pride, her seething red from the injustice of being misunderstood.

I hand over pen and paper, explaining that we will clarify the expectations and what it means to clean the kitchen. The writing pauses and steely eyes look me square in the face “I will write what you say, but it doesn’t change what I think”. I think over my prepared response, breathe and say it lightly. Neither of us is comfortable.

I flip open my Bible to a long loved passage. Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (NIV).

I am gripped with this thought, lie out your petition, and present your request. There is nothing here instructing me to figure out solutions and then pray God will use them. I tighten my hand into a fist, watchful, turn my hand up and uncurl my fingers. These hands, this mind, this body, they are frail and finite. I pause thinking how peaceful life is when I do not fight for my way. I carry the thought further wondering if the root of my striving is anxiety. My plan is a well-worn rug. His seems a bit foreign, a bit scarier. But why fight for a path without knowing its destination? Why would I do this? I ask aloud. Why would I pay so much attention to my own directions?

The beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, is Immanuel, God with us. He knows where each path leads. Sow to flesh, reap flesh. Sow to the Spirit; reap Spirit. The fruit of His Spirit turns self-absorption and striving into self-control and peace.

A willful girl can willfully hold her life up as a sacrifice. And though her arms shake under the strain and pressure, they will grow stronger. Time and new habits do that. Fortifying a heart that resolutely yearns to beat for another. Humility is a tether, reminding me, I do not know how to lead. My petition, my prayer is that I will learn to follow.

Passing Over

By Heather Allen –

Spring is coming. Trees are already budding as we experience an unseasonably warm winter. Passover is approaching and with it my anticipation of celebrating God’s divine protection. A few years ago my family was invited to celebrate our first Passover Seder. The experience was rich as we recalled how Moses and Aaron were called to be spokesman, plagues came on a stubborn ruler, and then thousands of years later Christ became the Passover lamb.

After the Seder, I began studying the Passover and other feasts in scripture. A beautiful painting took form as I traced God’s preservation of His people throughout history.

Several Passover truths stood out as I studied. Under King Josiah & Hezekiah, Israel celebrated the Passover, renewing their covenant to follow God’s law and repenting for their sin. While under Persian rule the Jewish people were handed a death sentence also known as Haman’s edict. This edict would have come as they prepared for Passover. And just as God spared His people in Egypt, he again spared them in Persia. Both times they were integrated into another culture. As deliverance came, perhaps the realization that they were a separate people followed. There was a covenant in place. And then Christ’s death fell on Passover, His last breath coming as the Passover lamb would have been slaughtered – A man should have taken much longer to die, but Christ gave up His spirit at that exact hour.

There is a pattern I am noticing the more I study the Jewish feasts, a divine calendar. These dates were not merely historical dates with significance for the Jewish people; they are significant today. I believe we will continue to see prophecy linked with these dates. God still distinguishes between His own and those who are not. This is a covenant relationship. Do I believe we may see God pass over us again on Passover? Perhaps. Blood on our doorposts will not separate us. Rather Christ’s shed blood covers our sin.

An identity shift should take place as we embrace the reality that we are His people. We belong to the God who called forth water from a rock. He will be enough for us in any circumstance. He is a covenant God, faithful to all generations.

“Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until His wrath has passed by. See the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins” (Isaiah 26:20-21 NIV).

(The cross reference on this is the first Passover is Exodus 12:23)

Shine

By Heather Allen –

I thought being a teenager was painful. I disliked the sense of awkward vulnerability that accompanied those years. I disliked being subjected to the sheer foolishness that is public high school. And I disliked feeling torn between the numb robotic actions expected of me, so I could fit the status quo, and the desire to flip expectations upside down.

So I tell my teenager the things I wish I had understood way back then, in the olden days. I tell her not to worry who likes her, that this is the time to develop into the woman God wants her to be.The answers to her identity questions are found in scripture. I tell her loneliness is a large part of the human experience. But that it can serve a big purpose if we allow it to. It can drive us away from trying to please others and straight toward God. And when we embrace His love, flaky acceptance we experience elsewhere tastes like saccharine. Once you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good there is no substitute.

At every age we need to know God’s word is true when it says we ourselves become a well-watered garden when we focus on meeting the needs of the needy instead of our own. When we pour out, God pours in. And when we strive to fill ourselves we are emptier than before. There is no shortage of alternatives we can cram our lives with and when we do the heart grows heavier and the spirit more afflicted.

I recently heard a man I admire say salvation is not just for Heaven but Earth also. Our freedom from sin and death are for the here and now. The more I wrestle with my sin nature, the more relieved I am that God can and will clean it up. And with precision better than a surgeon His words separate the bone and marrow. I lie down peacefully, gazing up at Him through a starry sky and wonder why I ever choose anything but His presence and an obedient life. Does it make me an old soul to say all else is meaningless, “a chasing after the wind”? (Ecc. 1:14 NIV)

I grew up doing all the right things and being in all the right places. I even went on a spiritual renewal retreat, when it meant not going out with a boy I liked. I remember thinking that living right was something we did, muscling our way through life. That to shine and be a light was mostly self-driven. But when I was broken beyond human repair, God began to speak through me. He began to heal and clean me. I eagerly participated, desiring to be whole and new. I still climb up on the surgeon’s table and hand Him any tool He asks for. I hand Him my confession, my desires, my fears, and my heartache. He cuts out the disease of sin, cleans the festering wound, and stitches the cut that I tried to cover with a band-aid. He did it yesterday, and He’ll be back tomorrow. When I call Him in the middle of the night He is there.

Why trade Him for anything else? He is the only long-term satisfaction in life because He is life.
“In Him was life and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4 KJV).

Watches of the Night

By Heather Allen –

As long as I can remember there has been a yearning within to know God. There are many things material and immaterial that people place hope in. I have read about the mythological beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. They share something with every other culture, gods fashioned in human likeness. But as much as mankind desires to promote self-worship, there is a craving for something so much larger than self. There in the bitterness when sin runs its destructive course is the looming questions; is there nothing more?

This past month was filled with restless nights. During these dark watches I was in agony over sin. I have never experienced anything like it before. I have been studying the gospels and have been struck anew at God’s imperative love. We have no hope without a covering for our sin. Yet as I twisted and turned my way through repentance for myself, family, and our nation, what stuck was a new understanding of what it meant for Christ to become sin.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV).

As I lay there grieving I could not imagine the terrible load Christ carried on the cross. The only relief on those nights has come from the Lord; I cannot imagine my distress if He turned his face from me.

He is mercy. I longed to understand what was happening to me on these sleepless nights. I have heard friends talk about intercessory prayer but I have never before felt this type of weight or grief over our nation. A close friend called and unknowingly began to describe the same scenario. She described waking at the same times and crying in repentance to the Lord. Unexpected joy surged through me as she shared what God has been teaching her through this. And as I re-read the account of Jesus’ last night in Gethsemane I was soul struck at His instructions to watch and pray.

The disciples were sleepy. Jesus acknowledged their reality “the spirit is willing but the body is weak” (Matthew 25:41b NIV).

But He admonished them three times to keep watch. He told them to pray so they would not fall into temptation. Interestingly enough, the instructions are the same in Mark 13:33 “Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is” (KJV). Only this passage in Mark is referring to the end of the age.

The night of Jesus’ arrest must have seemed the darkest of all nights. His disciples scattered, except Peter who was left to grieve, denying He was Jesus’ disciple. Jesus had told them what to expect. Yet I have to wonder what raced through their minds that horrific night, and when they woke to the grim reality that their Messiah was convicted despite perfection. The world would have seemed incalculably evil. Did they lose heart that Passover?

What seemed the darkest hour in history became the pinnacle moment of redemption. They did not understand like we do not understand. Because when we draw near to the end of the age and all seems depraved and lost it is then when we will look up and see our glorious redeemer drawing near. This hard fought battle will be done. Until that day watch and pray.

« Previous Page — Next Page »