Jerry’s Flat – Saturday Morning, March 11, 1989
Can’t fight this feeling anymore, sang through his mind as Jerry woke. The diamond of the morning light peeked through his bedroom window. It must have been a deep sleep; he did not recall climbing into bed. Caffeine crash. As soon as he had calmed to the soothing ballad, his eyes closed.
Stop fighting a fight that is already won, the Voice revealed.
He closed his eyes again. He wanted to return to the dream that he was just in. Not recalling any of it, other than it was so peaceful, a nirvana, one that he did not want to leave.
“God is my destiny.” He opened his eyes with the surprise of hearing his own voice, like that when one speaks without first hearing the thoughts in their head. “God is my destiny.” He smiled.
The peace was that—the fight was over.
He no longer felt he was wrestling with his thoughts, tortured by speculations of his destiny and will. Heading to his writing table, he grabbed his notebook and pen.
“God is my destiny,” he said as he wrote.
“God is my destiny.” It answered the question that had troubled him for weeks, trying to write this paper about his self-destiny.
“God is my . . . ” Abruptly, he stood and hurried to the window. He could not believe what he saw. Or was it not believing what he had seen before he crashed to sleep? How could I have seen a candle in the window if the window is boarded up, as I have always known it to be?
“Destiny.”
Jerry sat down slowly as he continued to look in wonderment at the boarded up window across the street. He leaned back in his desk chair, clasped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. He wanted to go back to his dream.
He relived in his mind the lightning experience—the rolling thunder, the cloud that imploded with a brilliance that exploded the lightning bolt to his feet, waking with his face on the sizzling wet pavement, the sound of the trumpet, the Voice . . . Jerry, you are not alone.
In his mind looking from above, Jerry saw himself standing in the middle of the street, the glow of the green stop light above his head. Then he saw his clothes gradually turn to a brilliant white. The Voice surrounded him—
The vision shut off in his mind as quickly as it came. Jerry picked up his pen and scribed.
You have received the power of My Holy Spirit.
Goosebumps rose on his arms, and he felt a shiver emanate from his neck cascading down his back. He continued to scribe.
You will be my witness wherever you go. How you live matters much, even more than your words.
“More than my words . . . ” Jerry pondered this and set his pen down to reflect. “More than my words . . . the block in my writing . . . more than my words . . . ” He picked up his pen and began again to scribe the words of the Voice that stormy evening.
Turn from your hypocritical ways that turn people away from me.
“Whew.” He shook his head. “That is heavy. I’m a hypocrite? Sheesh.” He leaned back in his chair and let his head drop back as he closed his eyes. “Hypocrite,” he said in a hushed voice. “How am I a hypocrite?”
You are living a life that is not who I made you to be, the Voice revealed. He sat up, eyes opening in amazement.
“What?”
Jerry wrote the words he heard as a scribe would dictation.
You are living a life that is not who I made you to be.
Receive me as your first love, and you will be a new creation, a new man, the Voice revealed.
“Receive me as your first love, become a new man.” He repeated to himself, “New man.” He nodded with recognition beginning to understand. “I’m to write about me as a new man. Got it.”
Jerry flipped to a new page and began to write, this time with God’s purpose, speaking aloud as his pen quivered across the paper as he wrote profusely, “I am a new man. God has called me to become His destiny, His purpose . . . ” He paused writing. The thought stopped. He sat back.
“Thought I was on a roll,” he said glumly.
Write what you hear, the Voice revealed, and do not question what you receive. This is the faith part. You must believe that the words you hear are from Me and not of your own thinking.
“Sure sounds like my voice,” he said, questioning. “But I would never have said that, hehe.”
Lead, teach and heal, the Voice revealed.
“What?”
Silence.
“Say again?”
Silence.
He thought he was a bit crazy hearing all this so, he let down his guard and acted like it. He walked to his stereo where his headset laid and put it on.
“Ground control to Major Tom.”
Silence.
“Ground control to Major Tom.”
Silence.
Jerry sat down at his writing table, earphones still on his head.
“I cannot do this on my own,” he said looking at the words he had written. “Without the Voice I am nothing.” He looked out the window and his mind flashed the image of the candle. “With the power of God’s Spirit in me . . . ” He paused realizing the magnitude of what he had just said. “I have all I need to pursue all that He calls me to do.”
Willingly and out of obedience, he scribed what he heard.
Lead
Teach
Heal
Your life is a witness to the world about Christ, the Voice declared.
His pen quivered across the page throughout the early morning.
The words Jerry heard from the Voice stopped after an hour. Silence. The morning’s rays angled through the window. Across the street, the boarded up window closed his thoughts. Resting his pen on the table, he pictured the candle he had seen in the dark. How could it be? Light penetrating darkness?
He glanced at the clock. Just in time. He had to be at work at the hardware store is just an hour. Time to shower and shave before it opened at 8 a.m. He didn’t have time to read what he wrote, and he didn’t need to. The last words he scribed kept rolling in his mind— Plant the good seed and surrender to Me to birth the gift I gave you that will glorify Me and build your character.
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Copyright 2017 © Jeff Cambridge
Excerpt from
PURSUIT, a novel by Jeff Cambridge, a writer of transformational fiction with
characters that tell life-changing stories.
This is a
pre-published scene.
To read the
scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A
Novel – Prologue”
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write a comment, or email me at bycambridge@gmail.com.
This novel is a
work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and
locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and
authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
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