Thursday, January 29, 2015

God's Hyperlinks

Spending time at The Gideons International Office Nashville, TN
How does a little girl from Newville, PA get invited to lead worship in Nashville, TN?  A city where they say every waiter/waitress is a great guitar player?  That's what ran through my mind after boarding the plane in Harrisburg, PA to fly to Nashville, TN this past weekend.

The short answer?  Only God!

The long answer.......

I took my seat on the airplane next to the window and I wasn't seated very long when a memory flashed through my mind.  It's as if the action of sitting down on the plane lit up the memory and made it active in my mind again. I forgot about my present trip to Nashville and recalled a conversation with my mother in my parents' house many years ago.

At that time, I was working part time for a company based in Canada called Eagle's Flight.  I would fly to various destinations and serve as part of a support team to a facilitator who took cooperate companies through experiential training in team-building exercises.  Though the experience stretched me, I loved doing it.  I remember sensing in my heart that one day I would be stretched in another capacity, but it would have more to do with my music than the Eagle's Flight company I was currently working for at that time.  It was just a vanishing thought, but it was very vivid.

Back in my parents' living room, I was having a discussion with my mother.  She had the regular fears I guess any mother would have when their child is flying all over the U.S. 

"What if something happens to you" she asked out of the blue one day.

From somewhere deep inside of me, a protective attitude arose and I found myself saying something to her that surprised even me. "Mother, some day I will be flying even more and I don't want to dwell on fear, so if you don't mind, we're not going to discuss this."

I know she was shocked and frankly, so was I. But there's something you need to understand. I never dealt with fear of flying until one day a well meaning friend knew I was flying the following day and said to me, "aren't you afraid something will happen to you?"  It never occurred to me to be afraid until that moment when her statement planted a seed of fear.

The next day when I flew, we encountered a thunderstorm on our flight and such fear grabbed hold of my heart that I went into panic mode.  When we landed to catch our connecting flight, I vowed I would never get on an airplane again.  I called my parents from the airport to tell them I needed to find another mode of transportation to get me the rest of the way but they weren't home. That was before the days of cell phones, so I felt stranded. I was hoping they would offer to buy me a bus ticket or something to take the place of my final leg of the flights.  That's how strong fear can become!

Reluctantly and very full of fear, I boarded the final flight to my destination and sat down in my seat absolutely convinced that this would be my last moment on earth and that we would crash to the ground taking all my fears with me.

Of course, that didn't happen, but for the next few years I had a terrible battle with fear every time I flew.  It took years to overcome that fear and when I finally did conquer it, I had no interest in activating it again through a discussion with my mother.  You can now understand why I was so defensive when my mother opened a can of worms that she didn't know existed.  It was only meant to protect my freedom from another battle with fear.

So here's where the hyperlink comes in. It's God's hyperlinks. We go about our daily activities doing our best to listen for His whispers, act on what we think we hear Him saying and all of a sudden, He activates something in our life and transports us to divine connections.

I had a distinct feeling in my spirit that someday I would need to fly for what would become my own music ministry - and though there was nothing in the natural realm from which to prove my statement to my mother, I knew that it was coming down the road.  Sometimes God gives us an advance notice of what is to come.  I think that's what happened to me that day I had the conversation with my mother. Jesus did it with his band of believers.  He would say to them things like: “I’m telling you all this ahead of time so that when it happens you will believe that I am who I say I am.."  I wish he'd tell us more things ahead of time and maybe He is if we would listen.

So now it's January 2015 and I am seated on US Airways, traveling to Nashville, TN, not for some other company, but for my own music ministry, just as I sensed would happen years ago. Now, sitting on the plane, I realized that after many years of praying, being faithful and sharpening my tools, God made the link active and here I was heading to Nashville to lead worship for The Gideons International at the 2015 Auxiliary President's Conference.

So how do you click on God's hyperlinks?

1.)  Pray - talk to God and also listen for His voice - when he speaks make a note of it for future reference
2.)  Obey - whatever steps He tells you to take, walk in them and trust Him for the outcome

There are probably whispers and glimpses you have in your spirit of things God wants to do in your life and places He wants to take you.  Let Him do the activating!  Your job is to pray in a receptive mode and obey when you think He is telling you to act.

It's amazing the sites you will take in when He activates the hyperlinks.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, that is amazing and encouraging. On Sharon and my honeymoon we went for a small airplane ride. I think it was Sharon's second small plane ride. It was near Potter County and I think the airport was called Cherry Springs. After we lifted off the ground Sharon noticed that there wasn't much runway left before a large cliff dropped off in the mountain. She said that is the last airplane ride she is going on so I said okay. Maybe 15 or so years latter, we are visiting the museum on the outer banks of North Carolina where the Wright Brothers flew their airplane. While in the museum she says to me "I think I would like to go for an airplane ride." I started to say that I didn't think we had enough money for that and then I said "What did you say?". So we found enough money to take a ride. In the first plane, when we got to the end of the runway to take off a red light came on so the pilot said that we would have to take the other plane. We took off and it was really windy to be flying in a small plane but once we got high enough it was okay. We flew a half circle around a light house and I am sitting in the front seat and it never dawned on me to take a picture of the light house so instead I just keep holding the camera. When we came back to land we weren't low enough to land so we had to go around and try again and we are being blown around with the wind and I am thinking I hope we can land the second time or I am not sure if my stomach can handle much more of this. A few years latter we were near Gatlinburg N.C. and Sharon wondered if we could take a helicopter ride over the Smoky Mountains so we took about a half hour ride. We paid for the ride at one place and they told us where to meet the helicopter and when we got there the pilot already had it running and was waiting for us. Maybe 5 years ago we drove to the Florida Keys and Sharon wanted to para sail so we did. I asked her if we should go for 600 feet of rope or the 1000 feet and she said she didn't care so I said we might as well go for the 1000 feet. We were up in the air for about 10 minutes and when he brought us in we were about to hit the water so he gunned the engine on the boat to get us back up in the air and then he brought us back on board the boat. We hit the deck on our bottoms. I was wondering if that is how a flying fish would feel if he was caught. From one side of the center of the universe to the other side of the center of the universe. Blessings to you, Francis From, Maynard Hock

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    1. Thanks for sharing your journey with flying over the years and how you and your wife have ventured further and further into flying experiences. It's the way God seems to work in our lives...taking us higher into His freedom and courage.

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  2. I love how God orchestrates the pieces of the puzzle and even when we don't see it clearly ourselves... trusting in Him... He places the pieces together. So glad to see these pieces come together for you!

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    1. Thanks Cherie. It takes a long time but it is rewarding to see Him put everything together. Appreciate the comments!

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