A few years ago when I stopped believing in God for a whole summer, ( I wrote about it here. ) I was surprised to find that even when I completely doubted His existence, He still put visions into my mind for me to furiously type out. It happened the same way every time: I was doing something random when He put the whole thing in my mind at once and I couldn't do anything else until I typed it out, my heart beating wildly! I was finished and breathing hard before I even realized that I was writing down the words of someone I didn't believe existed. It was a weird time and I didn't know what to do with the visions so I just kept them typed out. I think now is the time to share them. I don't even know why or why now. I'm just going to do it anyway. This won't be a blog filled with quotes or pictures, just the visions typed out as simply as I can.
1. The Bird in The Box
This one takes more explanation than the others. I saw His Holy Spirit as a bird flying around a church services on a Sunday morning. I didn't recognize the church sanctuary but it felt familiar. The gracefulness of the bird brought many oohs, ahhs and cheers from the people below. They had never seen anything like it, and it affected everyone in ways they couldn't describe but they knew they wanted more.
After the bird awed the crowd until they were exhausted and giddy, someone had an idea. After much group discussion, they decided to capture the bird. They couldn't trust it to stay with them, but they needed it, so they put a chain around its neck and shoved it in a box. Shouts of, "we got it!" filled the room and there was much celebration. They just knew that bird would change everything!
The next church service came and the sanctuary was full of people. The atmosphere was charged with excitement so with much anticipation they opened the box toward the crowd. The bird, thinking it was finally free, opened wide its wings and shot out into the air. At the height of its flight, before the people even had a chance to gasp at the beauty above them, the chain snapped the bird backwards and it flopped to the ground. The crowd was quiet; no one understood. PERFORM BIRD, PERFORM! This happened week after week after week.
They pulled out the box.
They saw the bird breathing, but unwilling to fly.
Everyone left disappointed.
Week after week, less people came to expect the flight.
So...less people came.
They wanted the performance but didn't trust the bird to fly so they chained him back and released him on their own timetable. They wanted a repeat of the first performance or nothing at all. They started to feel a self-righteous anger. PERFORM BIRD, PERFORM!!
Week after week, they left with heads hung low and hopes unfulfilled. The bird was so crushed and so chained and so bound by their expectations, fears, and disappointment that it died in that box.
The next service, they opened up the box to no movement at all and a stench so strong it drove the remaining stragglers away. They decided to just burn the whole thing. And they were mad at the bird. They blamed the bird for being crushed, for being chained for being bound.
The bird was never meant to be chained up and released upon request. That bird was meant to fly free and in order to thrive required the trust of the people He came to. The freedom to fly on His own.
2. The Pit of Unbelief
The next vision was one on unbelief. Instead of writing this one out, God had me draw it. I don't know where the drawing is now, so I'll explain what I drew. He first had me draw three pits (they just looked like a big letter U because I'm terrible at drawing).
The first pit was called Unbelief and I drew myself at the bottom while God was reaching down to grab me out of it. He saved me.
The second pit was called Unbelief and I drew God laying over the opening so that I could walk over Him and not fall in. He prevented me from falling in the first place.
The third pit was called Unbelief and I drew myself at the bottom of the pit with a giant rock covering the opening. He was silent, He didn't prevent, He didn't save.
The third pit ended up being the situation I found myself in the moment I saw the vision. I was in the pit and God placed a rock over the opening. There was only darkness, pitch black. That doesn't seem like God does it?
I was confused until God revealed to me after I drew the three pits that He rescues in many ways. He prevents us from falling, He saves us when we fall, but He also prevents us from getting up sometimes. As I thought more about that third pit, I laughed out loud when I realized that He was also in the pit I just couldn't see Him because of the darkness. He was the one who put the rock over the opening; He prevented a way out of the pit and blinded me so that I could see Him. Until I could see the light.
He would never have placed a rock over the top of the pit if he wasn't in there with me. He would never leave me. He just needed me to look for Him; to seek Him in desperation with all of my heart.
3. Linking Arms: The Search Party
The third vision was about Celebration Church (my sweet home). I saw all of us linking arms (like when a search party links arm and looks for a lost child in the woods). We made a long line of people and were sweeping one area of Huntington at a time. At the time of the vision, we were in West End where the church is located.
Someone (a leader?) was shouting, "NO ONE will be lost, ALL will be found. We WILL NOT leave a stone unturned, we will find them all."
All I know of that vision is the feeling of it. We were all so committed to enter the world and save the lost, it was like we weren't even willing to go to work the next day or ever unlink our arms. When I remember this vision, I always think of a parent who has lost a child in the woods and what it would feel like to search as a group. It was THAT kind of passion, THAT kind of tenacity. Determination. Persistence. We wouldn't stop until that one child was saved. There was just no other option but to keep going...together.
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