I made a new friend today. John is the owner of a coffee shop in Salt Lake City, that I chose to do my morning encounter time. He saw me reading my bible and came over asked me where I was reading. Come to find out, he knows a whole lot about the Bible, and we had a really cool conversation where he taught me a lot about biblical events and the repercussions of them further along the timeline of the story.
This morning was a tale of two coffee shops. The first coffee shop I walked into was heavy; it was quite literally dark, both in ambiance and in spiritual weightiness. They flew a pride flag in the hallway to the bathroom, and three of the baristas were men dressed as women. I was going to spend my morning in a coffee shop with the Lord, praying, journaling, writing this post, and I didn’t want to do it there.
So I left.
And I landed at Salt Lake Roasting Co. As I walked in, the first table was occupied by a couple of girls praying for each other. At a table in the back were three guys doing a bible study.
John has created a space similar to the one I will create one day. I have dreams of owning a coffee shop one day. One where Holy Spirit has the whole room, and the conversations can be centered around Jesus. And I want to plant it right in the middle of Denver, where Jesus seems unwelcome.
But that is a later thing and not a now thing. And that is so frustrating because I WANT IT NOW. I believe that the Lord has told me that one day, it will be a dream realized, but until that day, I need to wait for the cloud to move.
In Exodus and Numbers, the Israelites were led through the wildness by the presence of the Lord. He manifested as a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. When the cloud or the pillar moved, so too did the Israelites. When the cloud or the pillar stayed, so too did the Israelites, and sometimes that was for weeks, months, and years.
I have been in a place of watching the cloud stay in one place for a long time. I am learning a lot. I recognize that, but I would love to learn with a change of scenery, ya know??
Oftentimes, I let that desire for change drive my decision making and that regularly leads to me attempting to do things of my own volition. I don’t consult the Lord, or I am like Moses and I hit the rock.
“So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.”
Numbers 20:9-11
The Lord told Moses to speak to the rock, and it would provide the water that His people desperately needed. All he needed to do was to speak, but instead, he chose to operate in his own power or in his own plans, and he struck the stone. The rock still produced water, but in his disobedience, Moses was excluded from receiving a promise—a big one, entering the promised land with the rest of Israel.
I wonder how often I attempt to make things happen in the name of the Lord, but if the corresponding results make me ignorant to the fact that I am missing promises in my disobedience.
I am a doer, I am efficient, I get things done in a timely matter, and I am always coming up with new ideas of things to do and make things happen. But I recognize today that in my impatience of waiting for cloud movement, I busy myself with things to do in an attempt to make the cloud relocate when, in reality, all of my doing is disobedient to the God who promised the cloud will move when He says it will.
We do a lot of things to withstand our own wilderness waiting.
When I say we, I can confidently say I, but I am including you to make me feel better about myself, so I say we.
I do things, and I often ask the Lord to move in such a way that the challenges of the wilderness go away. I don’t care what that looks like. He could pick me up like a Roller Coaster Tycoon theme park attendee and drop me in a different part of the game or Control, ALT Deletes the problem in my life and makes it all easy again. Regardless of His choice, I want the situation to change fundamentally.
I realized through reading Numbers 21 that He does not always remove you from the situation but He gives you things to get through the situation. In this case, it was a Bronze Serpent on a stick.
They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water!And we detest this miserable food!”
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Numbers 21:4-9
The Lord did not say, I will take you on a different route than I have you on. He did not say that he would poof the snakes away but He gave them a tool to withstand the opposition. The crazy thing to me is that He didn’t promise that He would take the pain of the snake bite itself away. He just said that they would not die..
There are lessons that need to be learned at times; there are repercussions to sin and disobedience. Pain is a great teacher. God did not give a reprieve of the pain needed to learn a lesson but he did promise that if they had faith in Him they would not die.
We have Bronze Snakes in our lives. Mine is the gym. In seasons when I am stuck in the wilderness for longer than I would like or when I am enduring something painful, I feel as if the Lord has given me the gym as a tool to withstand the pain of my current circumstance. That could look different for you.
But with those tools, we have to be careful. In 2 Kings 18:1-4, the Israelites ended up needing to destroy the Bronze Snake because they began to worship it.
It is crazy how much like the Israelites we are.
How easy is it for me to start to make a god of the gym? And how careful do I have to be to keep the gym in the right standing with the Lord? The Lord gives me the gym, which is a reprieve from the circumstances; the gym itself does not save me from my circumstances.
Being in a time of waiting and time of refinement is hard and it is humbling. It quite honestly is no fun most of the time. But there are two verses that I have had to recenter and meditate on in this season.
Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry,but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.
Psalms 34:10
and
Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.
Psalms 32:9
It would be so easy to try and be a strong, young lion and go get what I want when I want it. But the contrast is that while they may at times get what they want, there are times that they go hungry; those who trust the Lord lack no good thing.
But trusting the Lord can be hard. Especially when you have not seen him move tangibly in a period of time.
but
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
I want to have faith in things unseen and I don’t want to be a senseless horse who needs a bit and a bridle to be kept under control.
I want to practice one of the gifts of the holy spirit, self-control.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Today, I am surrendering my attempts to move the cloud, I am laying down the idol of the gym on the alter for the Lord, and I am choosing faith in the things unseen with the intention of being identified as one who trusts the Lord and not a young lion, or senseless mule.
🙌🏼 Weekly Worship
This song is led by one of my best friends and it has been an anthem for me the last couple of weeks.
It is fitting for the words I penned in the above section.
Give it a listen.
You’ll like it.
🎙️ Podcast
This teaching series by Mercy Culture Church down in DFW is important… You should go listen to it.
They are through two weeks of it.
I will link the first two sermons below.
💪🏼 Weekly Challenge
This week I would challenge you to join me in introspection.
Where are you doing, even if it is doing good.. Where are you doing that the Lord is asking you not to?
The Lord loves to show off, and He wants his name to be glorified. In our pride, we want to help take credit for the good that He does but in reality, He does not need us. Are you missing out on a promise like Moses because you are being disobedient in the name of doing?
🙏🏻Weekly Prayer
This week I want to pray for the family unit. The enemy hates families. He hates children being prioritized over work. Marriages being put higher than position in society or work. He hates tight-knit families, and He does everything he can to weaken the bonds between the core family unit.
I rebuke the efforts of the enemy today.
I hope this week’s edition of the Weekly Weapons Newsletter was beneficial to you in one way or another.
As this thing evolves, I would LOVE feedback or just responses.
You can email me at mitchparsonscreative@gmail.com
or leave a comment.
You can support this newsletter very simply.
Subscribe.
Subscribed
or share with a friend.
Would you forward this email to 2 people that come to your head??
Until next time.
PEACE✌🏻