6.03.2006

God's way is sometimes an unexpected hole

Does anyone recall a time in the Bible when God used a hole in a wall or in a gate or something like that as a plan or startegy or for anything? I know Ezekiel saw a hole in the wall and dug and found an entrance to a room(Ezekiel8:7), but Ezekiel saw things a little differently then we did. this is coming form a guy who ate bread baked over human feces. Do you really want to trust that guy? He always had weird things happening to him anyway. I don't think he knew when he was in the world and when he was in the spiritual realm most of his life. So that one doesn't count. The reason I ask is because when I first arrived here in Charlotte Rob took me around to see the neighborhood and after I saw all the housing areas he took me by the middle school that's in our neighborhood. Past the school there is the entrance to an over pass for the highway that separates this community from the other. It's not a vehicle over pass; it's an over pass for people to walk on. Namely for kids to cross the road safely and get to school without playing russian roulette with the cars or taking a bus; it's a genius idea I think. Unfortunately, it also provided a great connecting spot for suppliers and addicts. The gate has been closed, chanined and locked since we got here and we haven't been able to open it. A few days after that I was playing Man Hunt (Hide-and-seek) with the kids in the neighborhood. I had a difficult time figuring out how they were getting form one spot to another faster than I was. I was running as fast as I could and had a hard time keeping up until I was able to follow one of them when he was running to a gate and in that gate there was a huge hole. They don't know why it's there or how it got there. They just know that it's there and it is an easy fast was to move around from one area to another in this game. A few weeks later Anthony and Andrea Castle arrive. Rob and I are taking them on the same tour of the neighborhood that he took me on, and we went to the same closed Highway over pass and Rob is speaking in tounges and commanding that the gate be opened in Jesus name and I look at the sides and see a hole in the gate. I'm guessing it was cut it the gate by drug suppliers and/or desperate addicts. We slip though the hole and walk to the other side where we find the gate locked as well but this time the hole was in the top of the gate and no one else was up for climbing up and through it so we saved it for a differnt day, but we now have a way to get into another neighborhood without driving for twenty minutes to get there. It puts a whole new spin on incarnational ministry. Not only are we living with the people we're ministering to, but we are moving form one community to another the same way drug users and dealers are. I love the way God works. When he does something he's not always miraculous; sometimes he's practical, which is why I asked the previous question. Has God ever used a hole in a wall before? Bueller...anyone Bueller...

3 comments:

Aurora said...

Hmm, I think that would be like youth councils this year!
I can think of other times where entire walls became holes....like moving to Vancouver, and seeing all the obstacles melt away as soon as I knew it was God leading me there and that He would make the way for me...(not in the cheesy song-lyrical way of walls, but in people I loved not wanting me to leave, then all of a sudden giving me their total support, and funds coming together in a way that only God could have planned.)...then again for Bangor, when I knew God was leading me, but then I got scared and the walls had to do with my own not wanting to go....but God was/has been faithful in providing everything I needed, and has/is training me through the process of learning to be more obedient to Him. He's been rooting me in this place, and for whatever purpose that is, I know that it's gonna be good!

Gideon son of Joash said...

A wall bcoming a hole is not a hole in a wall; it's a wall that disappeared.

Aurora said...

yeah, I know, but that still counts, doesn't it? Like, double or triple the wall-hole thing...it's God's disappearing wall trick...I like it when He plays that game....it means less hard climbing and less scraped kness, and more running free!