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| Spending time at The Gideons International Office Nashville, TN |
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.
