It all started when I decided that I needed to get away from the world for a little bit. To re-joy and let everything else and everyone else fade in the background. To spend some time with Abba. After many searches on the internet I decided to go camping! I picked a campground and made the reservation…. I was so excited. I had not been in nature in a long while and I was so glad to be getting away from everything that seemed familiar for something refreshing and new [to me].
Little did I know what Abba had in store for me that weekend… I was in for a surprise.
So I get to my campground and start setting up my things. Set up tent- check. Make bed-check. Gather wood for fire- check. Meet next door camping neighbors- check. Climb tree in my camping area- check. All and all, things were going great. I loved getting everything ready for the next couple days. Just the adventure and excitement of me actually being away and camping was making every task enjoyable. I started my fire and made an early dinner. My next door camping neighbors were so kind enough to lend me a lid for my pot [silly me forgot that ashes get in your food when you cook on open fires… silly silly]. I sat and read the Word while taking in the beauty of all that was around me. The sight of beautiful green trees, the smell of fresh ocean air [the campground was in a wooded area right next to the ocean] and campground fires, the feel of the earth beneath my feet, the sound of the birds singing, and warm soup all slowly started breaking off the callousness and weariness of the past week. I started to feel more sensitive, more alert to the beauty around me. I was able to see the goodness and the pleasant ways of Abba’s creation and of Abba Himself.
After I finished eating, I cleaned up and decided to get some more wood from an area that my neighbors told me about. They said it would be cold that night and so I wanted to make sure I had enough wood. I went and gathered wood and took it back in my car. After I was done, I decided to go to the ocean to watch the sunset. I walked down and found two nice rocks shaped like a little seat and took my spot. I brought my harmonica and played for a while… not anything in particular-just notes. Sitting there, watching the waves go back and forth I recalled a verse in the Word in Job about Abba marking the oceans borders
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘this far you may come
and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?” *
I sat there looking at the ocean thinking ‘wow. There is an actual border that Abba has laid. It CANNOT go further... absolutely not, for He set His limit and it has held strong since the beginning of time.’ This thought made me awe. It made me stand back and see the strength of the waves-how even they are halted by the Word of the Lord- for His Word is strong. It also made me see how big and great the Almighty is, much greater and mightier than this ocean. After I spent some time gazing, I went back to the campsite and started making a fire for the night.
As I was making some tea and eating some dessert I overheard the neighbors talking about spiritual matters. I heard one of the men talking to the others in his party about an out of body experience he had when he almost died. They had been so kind to me earlier that I decided to ask to sit with them and listen to their conversation. I wanted to hear about where their hearts were. They talked of spiritual things and the in way they spoke, I knew that they believed in not just the physical world but the spiritual world as well. That was the question though that was trying to be figured out during that conversation: just what exactly is it? Is there a force or a being? The question of what or who is out there was what was being wrestled with. After a while however it started sprinkling and that was our cue that it was time to turn in for the night.
I got into my tent and snuggled into the nice blankets that in about ten minutes time would be warm by my heat. I read for a while and then started hearing the rain against my tent. The internet forecast had predicted there to be showers that weekend, so I thought ‘here they are’. I got one of my heating packs and opened it so that I would have some extra warmth. As the minutes rolled by so did the rain along my tent. At first it was a steady stream of light rain. As the first hour progressed however, it started to slowly pick up heaviness and the wind started to become stronger.
I would hear the wind coming from the back of me starting off far away and quiet then getting slowly louder until it passed my tent. WOOOOOOSH…. It would say and the rain would fall on my tent and the trees would rustle. The rhythm was steady and as everything was getting quiet, I could hear the ocean from my tent. WOOOOOOOSH!!!!! Rain. Rustle. Steady. Rain. WWOOOOOOOOOSH!!! Rain. Rustle. Steady. Rain, Rain. Ocean ….CRASH! The sound of the ocean… it sounded like it was feet away, the rain started to fall harder, and the wind was picking up more power and strength. I laid there in my tent in complete amazement and awe of the elements outside of my thin plastic tent. Another hour went by. As the time started passing the waves, rain, the shaking of the trees, and wind started growing stronger, louder, and mightier. As with each passing minute my heart became more and more in awe of what was happening outside. I thought to myself ‘this is getting really crazy and a little scary.’ Just the sheer might of nature started to put a fear in me- the fear of the Lord and His mightiness.
Then it happened.
I could hear the wind coming slowly and it sounded loud and very strong. I instinctively hid myself under the covers and braced myself for the worst. WWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSHHSHH!!!!!! At the crescendo of the wind my tent lifted up from the ground and started shaking just like it was one of the trees outside. … .. …. I was the only thing holding that tent to the ground!!!!
By this time I am seriously fearful thinking to myself the following: I am so small. I have no control over really anything. I cannot stop this wind. Or rain. If a big wave were to come I would not be able to stop it. I would be swept away. This little plastic bubble of a tent is the only thing keeping me from all of THAT out there. There is nothing I could do. I am completely exposed to the elements. To God’s wonderful and mighty creation. I am completely exposed to Abba. He is so powerful. I am not in control. I have no defense. I am small. He is in control. He is big. He is mighty……
He is God.
All I could say was ‘ oh my, You are God, You are God, You are God’ The grandness, might, strength, power, magnitude, wonder, and fear could not escape me. It could not have been clearer to me at any point in my life, than in my little plastic bubble tent that was a poor sham of an excuse for protection from the sheer magnitude of what was outside.
Just like that rediculous plastic bubble, all of our defenses, false security, hiding, coverings and effort are all walls created against the truth of who we are and who God is. Sure we don’t say it out loud. We don’t go around saying ‘I am the one that is in control here, I am the one that gets to make decisions about where I want to go and what I want to do, I am my own master, I have done this in my own strength, I have made something of myself, I, I , I , I’…. ….. we don’t say it out loud. But we think it. Our actions show it. Our culture supports it. Even though we try and not give into that mentality it slowly starts creeping into our hearts- into the parts where our desires are most precious to us. In the things we hold so closely to our hearts.
We say to Abba ‘here, you can have this part, but this other one, I will just hold onto for safe-keeping’ talking to the Maker of the Universe like He doesn’t know what He is doing, like He doesn’t know how to handle things the right way. We put ourselves above Abba when we decide to take control and do things our way. We forget our place as creation and forget who Abba really is….
God.
This has been one of the most basic and hardest things that I’ve been taught by Abba within these past couple of weeks; to truly know it. I don’t mean just to know it in your head. We know in our head that He is God, but do we know that in our hearts? Do we know in the gut, core, very being of ourselves that He is
our God? That He is the maker of our beings, that without Him, we are not? That He loves us and longs to give us good things but cannot because we are clasping so tightly to our own desires with closed hands, not able to receive? That He really does know what is best for us? That He longs to give us the greatest thing of all..... Himself?
I have had to wrestle with my own self, with Abba and it has been a difficult process- one in which I am still working through. I have had to come and face my own raging storm, the one inside… my pride, selfishness, judgments, anger, fear. I have had to look at it for what it really is and realize I have no control and am so in need of saving; I cannot calm this storm. My power is so small. I have no defense and this will sweep me away in my own strength.
But I know one who can. The only one. For He is higher and greater than anything.
36 The LORD will judge his people
and have compassion on his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
37 He will say: “Now where are their gods,
the rock they took refuge in,
38 the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up to help you!
Let them give you shelter!
39 “See now that I myself am He!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
and no one can deliver out of my hand.**
He is my hope and salvation. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. There is none besides Him.
