 Dear Friend, How are you? Hope you’re well. In late June, this year, I began to have ME Time for about 30 minutes in a nearby Christian school campus and in the garden of an art museum. Exactly speaking, Me Time with the Father. Since last year, I was able to go out with mom to cafe, as she didn’t want to go to restroom frequently like every 5 min. I was thankful for having the coffee time with her, and I didn’t have a need for Me time, which I used to have a few years back for an hour or so in the nearby gardens of museums. In this June, as I found out a very cool spot in the Christian school campus, I wanted to have a short Me time. I would say to mom that I would go to grocery shopping or grab some lunch and be back in an hour. So, I would spend 30 minutes for grocery shopping or grabbing lunch, after having 30 minutes of Me time. And I was so blessed by the short Me time with the Father. Each time, I came back home, so refreshed, after looking at and listening to His beautiful creature. The spots where the school benches are probably the coolest in this town. On June 28th, I walked to the campus, excited to enjoy Me time soon. Then, I found out my favorite bench was vacant, but two benches apart, there was a homeless man sitting on a bench, touching his barefoot. I took a seat on my favorite bench, and my mind began to be busy: Should I give him something? I don’t have any cash right now. But I have my debit cards. Should I go to the convenience store behind me and grab something for him to eat? But I had an impression that the Father wanted me to focus on Him for 30 minutes I would have alone with Him. It would be precious 30 minutes. Though I can talk to Him 24/7, with Him living in my heart, I felt He wanted this time to be dedicated to Him. I was also reminded of some precious teachings I got from a Watchman Nee’s book, The Spiritual Man: “The purpose of divine salvation is to encourage us to deny our will and be united with Him. Right there lies a big mistake among modern Christians. They envisage spirituality to be joyous feeling or profound knowledge. They spend time craving various sensations or questing after mental knowledge of the Bible, for they regard these as highly superior. Meanwhile, acting upon their feelings and thoughts, they go about performing many good, grand and notable tasks which they believe must be quite pleasing to God. They do not comprehend, however, that He asks not how they feel or reason; He only seeks the union of their wills with His. His delight is in having His people desire what He desires and do what He says. Except for a believer's unconditional surrender to God with the believer disposed to accept His will entirely, all else which is labeled spirituality: such as holy and happy feelings or prizewinning thoughts: is but an outward show. Even visions, dreams, voices, sighings, zeal, work, activity, and toil are external. Unless the believer is determined in his volition to finish the course God has set before him, nothing is of any worth. If we are really united with God in will, we shall cease at once every activity which emerges from ourselves. Hereafter there can be no independent action. We are dead to self but alive to God. No longer do we act for Him under our impulse and according to our way. We act solely after we are moved by God. We are set free from every motion of self. Such union, in other words, is a change of center, a new beginning. In the past all activities focused on self and began with it; today everything is of God. He does not ask the nature of whatever we start; He simply inquires who started it. God discounts every element not yet freed from self, no matter how good it may appear to be.” When I read the Watchman’s writings, I repented of doing something even seemingly good out of my own feelings, not led by the Holy Spirit. We know that our Lord, Jesus healed many, and casted out demons, but He didn’t heal all He met. Even when there was a need of being healed and taught from the crowds, He walked away from them, in order to have a quiet time with our Father. He knew when the Father wanted Him to heal the sick and when He had to be withdrawn for the time alone with the Father. And I realized the thoughts in my mind a minute ago related to the homeless man was not from the Father, but from me, “self,” i.e. self-righteousness. I had an impression in my heart as though the Father said, “Just sit there, and enjoy My creatures. He (The homeless man) is one of them.” I was reminded of a few verses from Genesis 1 I read the other day, after I read the first chapter, “In the Beginning God Created” of the Eugene Peterson’s book: Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26~31) I felt as though He tried to tell me that I wouldn’t see the homeless man as poor and me as rich or him as inferior and me as superior. I felt as if He tried to say “Enjoy My creatures just as they are. I made him in My image.” So, just from His perspective, we are all equal and we are all wonderfully and fearfully made. Just as I enjoy the privilege to take a seat on the bench and be refreshed by the breeze, he also has one. At that moment, he might want refreshment only, not money nor foods, just like I did. I had to take off my glasses, not to see him as a homeless man and me as a benefactor. So, I didn’t move from my bench, but stayed there. Then, with the cool breeze, I smelled the homeless man’s stink. But I didn’t move, to avoid the smell. I simply decided to enjoy His creatures for the moment. Interestingly enough, the Father also showed me an interesting-looking bug and a snail, which reminded me of “every creeping thing that creeps on the earth,” from Genesis. The creeping things, the homeless man and me. They are very good in His eyes. After a little while, the homeless man stood up and walked away. Only then did a thought come into my mind. If I had tried to give him foods out of my own thought or self-righteousness, he might have said something hostile to me (as some homeless people do). And there is no fruit, when we move out of our own wills, not being led by the Holy Spirit. I had peace all the while even when I didn’t do anything seemingly good, but simply enjoyed His creation, including cool breeze, blue sky with white clouds and beautiful sunlight, birds and the creeping things. More importantly, I enjoyed fellowshipping with my Father. A few days later, I came to read a Eugene Peterson’s book, Leap over a Wall. In a chapter titled Wilderness (David at En-Gedi), he wrote: “Everybody - at least everybody who has anything to do with God - spends time in the wilderness, so it’s important to know what can take place there. David didn’t choose to enter the wilderness; he was chased there. … But having been chased there, David found the wilderness a place of truth, a place of beauty, and a place of love. The years that David spent in the wilderness were some of the best years of his life. … When we’re in the wilderness, we aren’t in control, we have no assignment, no appointments to keep. Stay alert, stay alive - that’s it. When we’re in the wilderness, we commonly feel our lives simplifying and deepening. Many people, after a few days in the wilderness (sometimes after only a few hours), feel themselves to be more themselves, uncluttered and spontaneous. Very often, even though otherwise unaccustomed to it, they say the name God. There’s something wonderfully attractive about wilderness. … What I want to say is this: I readily acknowledge that this circumstantial wilderness is a terrible, frightening, and dangerous place; but I also believe that it’s a place of beauty. There are things to be seen, heard, and experienced in this wilderness that can be seen, heard, and experienced nowhere else…. In the wilderness we’re plunged into an awareness of danger and death; at the very same moment we’re plunged, if we let ourselves be, into an awareness of the great mystery of God and the extraordinary preciousness of life. … -another detail of God’s creation, God’s blessing. David didn’t see enough enemy; he saw the magnificent, albeit flawed, king of God and did obeisance. … David’s wilderness-trained eyes looked on Saul and saw not Saul the enemy but Saul the God-anointed. In the solitude and silence and emptiness of the wilderness, uncluttered and undistracted by what everyone else was saying and doing, David was able to see God’s glory where no one else could see it - in Saul.” It reminded me of the homeless man on the bench, and I felt the Father speaking to me through that book. Friend, I hope you take a breather in the midst of your busy day and enjoy His creation. I do not know whom and what you will encounter, during your break, but I know they are all His creation that He made and saw good. We all need the wilderness-trained eyes just like David’s. And more importantly, we meet our Creator in our wilderness time or ME time. Hope this blesses you. Have a bliss! Julie O Lord, how manifold are Your works! Comments are closed.
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