The Living Parable

When Jesus taught His disciples He often spoke in parables. This is a parable that God used to teach me with an encounter I had with Him. Years ago I was trying to figure out what God wanted for my life and what I should do career wise. I was praying and asking God what He wanted for my life, but never heard anything back. I had graduated the police academy and was looking for a job with an agency and was also being offered a job in the church as a student pastor. I wanted to make the right choice career wise so that I would be in the center of God’s will and direction for my life, but was not sure what to do so I decided to go on a prayer walk for my quiet time and seek God.

I opted to do what I like to call walking in God’s garden. I love nature and am completely amazed by how creative God is in the creation of the universe we live in. I decided to take the day off work and go to Honeymoon Island and walk their nature trail. On my way there I meant to stop and get bug spray because it was the middle of the summer and I knew that the mosquito’s would be out, but forgot to do so. As I began to walk the trail I started to get bit by mosquitos. I walked faster but could not get away from them. I was now frustrated not only by the fact that I was getting eaten up but was itchy, sore and mad because they were distracting me from my time alone with God.

I was fixated on the idea that I came to get close to God but could not because of the bugs that were biting me. I became even more frustrated because this was supposed to be a solemn time alone with me and God and could not understand why God would allow these pesky bugs to attack me when I was trying to spend time alone with Him. I finally made it through the trail and was pretty mad and found a picnic table out of the woods alone and sat down and opened my Bible thinking this would be the time when I would be left alone to hear God speak to me. I was not there for a minute when I got bit again. Frustrated, I slammed my Bible closed and left to go get bug spray so I could concentrate.

After dousing myself with bug spray I entered the trail again hoping to be left alone so I could admire God’s creation and hear him speak to me. I begin to walk the trail again and it is late afternoon and the sun is going down and the bugs are really starting to come out. I stopped to watch this owl family up in the tree for a minute. There was a baby with the mom and dad. It was a pretty cool scene. But before I moved on I looked around and it was like a mosquito wall surrounding me. I reached my arm into the wall of mosquitoes and they would move away. I was as if I had a force field around me that they couldn’t penetrate. This is when God began to speak to me. He said I have been trying to talk to you this whole time but you couldn’t hear me because you have not been protecting yourself from sin like you knew you needed to. Just like you knew you needed the bug spray to protect you from the mosquitoes and didn’t and got eaten alive. You also knew that you should be protecting yourself from sin and you haven’t and you have been letting yourself get eaten alive by sin.

This was like a punch right between the eyes. I remember thinking “wait a second God. I didn’t come here so that you could call me out on my sin. I came so you could give me direction.” This was a very harsh reality for me to come to and to this day I will never forget it. There much more to this story but the question I have is what are you doing to protect yourself so that you do not get eaten alive by sin. What is it that you know you need to do but are not doing and is this hindering you from hearing God speak to you? For me I honestly say that it was. Are you in the same boat? If so what will you do? God spoke to me clearly and I heard His voice of direction when I finally put the defenses back up His voice was not muzzled by the world. Maybe you have been there or maybe you are there now. Stop and put on the full protection/armor of God so that you can hear Him lead you where He wants you to be.