A few weeks before leaving for our 6 month adventure in Costa Rica, we were talking with some dear friends. They are more than just friends really... They are mentors and role models. They embody so much of what we want to live in our lives. We love and respect this couple and in them we see Jesus. And in them... I see the heart of SLOW.
We asked them to share a little with us about waiting on Jesus... and so shortly after we arrived in Costa Rica we received this email from them...
It felt as though it were a welcome message from God to me as I began half-time. It is beautiful.... Here is just an excerpt of the letter. Enjoy.
Instead of starting with the story of our own journey, I think I will start with an analogy: that of the horse and rider. Back in the day I was taking a horseback riding class and found myself on the back of a tired steed in a long line of horses and riders on a narrow trail. How much control did I have over my horse? How much control is needed to direct a horse to follow the other horses on a trail that the horse knows well? The truth is my horse could have safely carried me down the trail and back to the barn without any signals from me at all. I think he (my horse) was annoyed with me when I tried to exert some control. I didn’t want him to start walking just because the other horses did. I wanted him to start walking because I meant for him to walk. Why? Because I just wanted to feel powerful and controlling? No. I didn’t want to just walk a trail horse on a trail. I wanted to ride. I wanted to be on a horse in this whole new-to-me world of horseback riding with lots of possibility and, dare I mention it, adventure. Yes, I was willing to start with walking on a trail. But what seemed essential to the experience of exploring this new world was the response of the horse to me. Without the horse’s ability or willingness to respond to me it was all just a hairy and smelly merry-go-round: a short and fun – but fake – exercise to stimulate the imagination without the inconveniences and dangers of a real adventure. And that is what most beginner-oriented trail riding opportunities are meant to do. They give a little taste of the real thing. We can’t have beginners falling off and breaking their necks trying to gallop, can we? So merry-go-round trail riding is not a bad thing at all. But it sure isn’t all there is to riding a horse. It is just barely scraping the surface. And do you know that some of the horses there were in trail training. Two of them were good horses destined to carry police officers. But they needed to learn how to remain calm and obedient among strange sights, noises, and people. They need to learn to place their own desire to run or eat on hold and walk calmly behind the horse ahead. And a few years of trail riding was just what they needed. More training was in store for them, of course, but not before they had learned to what they needed to learn on the merry-go-round trails. So those trails can produce good things in horses. But horses meant for more need to learn at least this one thing: to look always to the rider for each direction, not the other horses. The merry-go-round trails, for all the good they do, do not make that abundantly clear.
So many times as Christians... we desire to know what is expected of us and do it. And that is important. So important it is even a part of the journey on which Jesus leads us: we give up a former way of life and surrender everything to Him. He leads us on an adventure to serve in a certain way in a certain place and we learn to give up what we want for what He wants. And we learn to remain calm in situations that would have caused us sleepless nights before this. We learn lots of wonderful lessons. And we work hard. But there is more, you know. That part of the journey, while it felt long and arduous, was only scraping the surface of what is to come: an adventure with Jesus in which you listen to Him and look to Him for each moment’s direction. That is what waiting on Jesus as a lifestyle is. It is looking to Him each moment for what should be done, and waiting until He speaks. This is in contrast to knowing what needs to be done and doing it in that you learn to listen before acting on the assumption that you should follow the horse in front of you.
The problem with the “do what needs to be done” lifestyle is that it doesn’t take the whole picture into account. It tends to assume that mere action in this realm is the answer. And it tends to assume that God speaks infrequently and that the main thing He wants from us is hard work and self denial. Hard work and self denial are important, but that is not the end, it is only the very beginning. He wants to restore our hearts and teach us to participate with Him in His work. He wants to show us how very spiritual everything is. He wants to teach us to listen to His continual communication. He wants to be conversational with us. And He wants us to learn to wait for His nudge instead of just going ahead with what everyone else is doing or what we think we need to do for Him.
In our journey, I wondered quite a few times when the waiting seasons would end and I would be able to charge ahead with what I knew I was supposed to do. But that was not what He had in mind. What He had in mind was teaching me to wait on Him continually like a horse that doesn’t even need a bit or a bridle or a trail or other horses. Like a horse that can remain steady and quiet, or charge ahead or back up, always obedient to the command of the moment. And then it is not just obeying commands and giving them, it is a deep connection between horse and rider most of us only read about.
Even as I re-read this letter to post it here today I am struck by the kindness of Jesus to speak directly to me through our friends. These first few months for me have been a time to re-connect with Jesus. To hear Him again... and to wait on Him continually.
This part of the letter especially resonates in my heart:
He wants to show us how very spiritual everything is. He wants to teach us to listen to His continual communication. He wants to be conversational with us.
During half-time thus far I have been completely blown away at how I am seeing, experiencing and hearing Jesus. It is constant. Everyday, without exaggeration, I have listened to the Holy Spirit speak a spiritual truth or a word of love to me or to Mac or to one of our children through something we are experiencing. Joshua stuck in a rip-tide becomes an immediate lesson about the pull of the world. Spotting a boa high in a tree and marveling at its beauty transforms into the sober thought about the beauty of the serpent and our need to be on guard, watching a man work for hours to up-root a dying plant captivated me as I continued to think about the poisonous roots we must get rid of in our hearts if we are to bear good fruit... I could go on and on.
Walking one morning with Mac my heart overflowed as I just gushed about how beautiful it is that Jesus is speaking constantly and in so many ways. He smiled and said, "I think he has always been speaking. I just think that now you are hearing Him."
Now I am hearing him. Why? What is different now?
The answer is at the heart of SLOW.
It is because now, during half-time, I have discovered margin.
