I awoke with a start and glanced through the open balcony doors that brought the sweet mountain air through my room during the night. Fog shrouded the base of the mountain—the Fifth Sister of the seven mountaintops of this range in Appalachia. The mountain is so near me that I feel I could touch it. It is one experience to drive over a crest and see a mountain range in the far distance—its majesty a rampart to what lies ahead, a beacon of green-forested protection—and an entirely different perspective to be nestled within its peaks. I am describing the Seven Sisters, a much-beloved range of three and a half miles of seven neatly ascending “sisters” leading to their “father,” Graybeard Mountain. A large tract in Little Piney Cove and on the east side of the first sister, Solomon Morris, belongs to the Billy Graham family.
There is peace in these mountains that lifts my spirit from the tugs of everyday life that distract me from my purpose. I am here on a spiritual retreat to prepare for my traverse through the last days of one decade in my life into the next.
I feel twenty years younger than my days would count, but my soul knows the spiritual growth I have experienced during the past ten years. Trial upon trial, I walked the range of life like the peaks of the Seven Sisters, rising then falling, an ebb and flow as I continued upwards through my circumstances. Yet I feel there is an end of this journey and the beginning of a new chapter in my life. Seven represents perfection or completion. It is with this timeline of seven years since divorce unshackled the bondage of imprisonment—a consequence of a choice I made two decades ago. I am speaking of being tethered from pursuing my life destiny, and I am not referring to or blaming anyone for that blockage. I made a choice that took me on a rollercoaster journey that formed who I am today. I did not know my destiny or calling back then. I was lost—a black sheep that pursued pastures that lacked spiritual nourishment.
The trail I followed the past seven years was well worn at first; at each fork I continued on the familiar way and repeated my past over and over. Yet my vision began to clear, and I saw these repeated experiences in the light rather than in the grey of my circumstances. You see, there is a dark side of destiny—those choices to follow and repeat what lead to dead ends. At the beginning of this year, I realized that I was at another fork in life—I could continue what was familiar, or I could choose the unexpected. God works in the unexpected.
The rise and fall of these past seven years were just that—rising and falling—a life unbalanced by the choices I made. What if I chose the path less travelled and experienced the unknown? Interestingly, I traversed into the New Year and repeated my heathen ways, that dark side of the flesh that pursues fun in the world’s ways.
I deeply wanted a change. I had to take the path of the unexpected. In January, I began a period of 21 days of prayer and fasting—my petition to Father God was to develop a balanced life centered in Christ. I expected Father would give me what I desired—it was a pure request—but what I got was totally unexpected. My life did not become balanced—it was turned upside down and spun out of my control.
Picture a vessel of earthenware, a pitcher that represents your life that pours out your daily experiences. My pitcher was cracked—a broken cistern that cannot hold water. What did the Potter do with my broken vessel? He shattered it to fragments, each piece representing an experience of my life. Yet the Potter wastes nothing.1 God created everything, and all that He made was very good. Yet my choices through life cracked the image He created.
The Potter took the fragments of my life and fired them in the crucible. As the molten clay cooled, I was without form—I was defeated. I could not shape myself—I needed the hands of the Potter to mold me. I lay there on the wheel of life in total surrender. I gave up my will for my destiny and turned it over to the Potter—“Yet not my will, but yours be done.”2 The wheel spun, and I felt out of control—my control. I wanted balance, and as the wheel turned, His hands shaped me into a new vessel. I became whole, but I was not yet complete. To retain my new form, the Potter put me in a fiery furnace. Remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? The king of Babylon—pride and idolatry—threw them in the fiery furnace because they worshipped their God and would not bow to him.3 God tests our faith in the fiery furnace. He puts us through fiery trials to strengthen our faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ. The fire either consumes us, or we stand firm and cry out to God for protection. God always answers—in His way and in His time.
Each day in the fire I surrendered my will. I turned from the familiar path of “I’ll make it happen,” and obediently took the path less traveled, the one that called to my spirit: “Let Me do it.”
Seven months have passed since my fast at the beginning of the year, and I now rest on the cooling rack. I am now on the second period of 21 days of prayer and fasting. Interestingly, the fast will end at midnight of my birthday.
As I cool in the sweet mountain air, I feel balanced—my vessel is new and without blemish. The divine hands of the Potter shaped me. It was His will and not my own that made me who I have become, a cistern that holds living water.
This was necessary to form me into a new man.
Follow Jeremiah’s Journey on this blog. This story is number 15 of a continuing series of revelation and overcoming trials in life.
References:
1 1. Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18, Romans 9:21
2 2. Luke 22:42
3 3. Daniel 3
Praise the Father in heaven for the words He has given me.
Copyright 2016 © Jeff Cambridge
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