A view from the hammock...

 As I sat in my hammock today, I was asking God what He wanted me to do. Lately I have been very involved in starting a ministry to organize the churches in the area to meet needs that are not being met and coordinating our resources.

While doing that He has brought me into a lot of churches and introduced me to new people. I can only fathom that this means I am about to enter the next step of my faith walk with Him.

As I questioned what all this means, I was heard His voice (internally, not audibly) say look out there. What do you see?

I answered, "I see your beautiful creation. I see the field, the trees the mountains. I see the birds flying through and chipmunks running around. I see your provision for them."

"Look closer, and tell me again. What do you see?"

So I stared out across the field, over the beautiful high grasses blowing in the wind. The trees with their green leaves were fluttering in the breezes and occasionally bending with the more forceful gusts.

"What am I supposed to see?" I asked myself. I had the impression I was missing something. Something I that was so obvious it would have bit me if it had teeth (as my dad used to say.)

"I have created most of the world like this." I heard the Lord say. "You will see it repeated in many areas of my creation, in life, in the spiritual and the natural. Keep looking."

Then it hit me. I was looking at various stages of life in the grass, the field, the trees and the mountains in the distance.

Just as there were levels to the grass, height to the trees and mountains, so are their various levels and heights to the things around us.

 Looking closely at the grass, I saw many different varieties of growth. Clover, rye grass, weeds, blue grass, and more. These gasses grew daily, were cut down weekly, dried out from time to time, and sometimes died off for a period or forever.

Then I looked at the field and saw the higher growth that was some of the very same grasses we had in the lawn, but were allowed to grow to their full potential. To bud and flower and go to seed. Occasionally they to may be cut or dryout or died off.

I noticed the trees on the edge of the field, standing proud and graceful watching over the grasses of the field and reaching higher to the heavens. Some would flower, some would change color, and some would die off if not cut down by men or lightning.

Then there were the mountains in the distance, made up of trees and grasses and having their own purpose in breaking the winds that blew through the valleys and redirecting it. By causing changes in elevations that brought temperature changes and caused storms to escalate or dispel their violence around them.

I noticed that all these parts of nature while rooted in the same earth, did not move about as the animals and people. They were stuck in their places just doing their best to be who they were. Never once moving under their own power. Just stuck.

"That's what some people are too," I heard the Lord say, "they don't care to grow closer to me. They allow others to cut them down and make decisions for them. Then there are some that grow for a while and get stuck at one level in life. Others grow to a point they feel they can point the way for those behind or below them. But they are all stuck. They are all part of my creation, but they are stuck. Look again." He said.

So I looked up over the field and at this precise moment I saw a flock of birds in perfect unison, swoop into the field, down into the grasses and then in one graceful movement, fly across the field happily chirping and enjoying their freedom.

"Now what do you choose to be?" he asked.

"Oh, this is easy! I want to be as the birds!" And then I thought how the birds never has to worry about a home, it's food, or fear the weather. The only thing the bird has to fear is it's enemy. The thief who tries to steal their eggs or babies possibly destroying it's home in the process. But even then while they do make a racket if they are aware of the thief in their midst, once the crisis is over, they don't fret about it. They rebuild and move on.

Freedom I have through Christ. Provision I have through God. Direction I have through the Holy Spirit. If I trust in these three, I have nothing to fear. Fear comes from not trusting. Fear comes from trusting in the thief and giving him more power than he deserves. Fear is why we get stuck.

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.        Isaiah 40:31