Dust

"In the midst of the dust storm comes a gentle wind, a breeze of the Spirit ..."

THE SOWER SOWED THE WORD aware of the fowls of the air, the stones in the soil, and its propensity to grow weeds with thorns. He, in fact, had counted every grain of sand long before ever taking seed into His hand. He knew every hair on men’s heads, for that matter. I find it beautiful that in God’s words to Abraham, He promised him descendants as many as the stars in the sky, as the sand by the seashore, then in the psalms we read He knows all the stars by name. God, the Sower, created the soil. He knows all the types of it, its molecular structure, and environmental requirements. He sowed the Seed anyway because He can take from what is arid, from the desert, and make a garden.

From the garden comes a dust storm. We stir it up and cast the seed to the wind, calling it wind of the Spirit. It isn’t. Nor is the next hurricane an act of God, either in the natural or the spirit. Instead our confusion, our lack of vision, comes because we’re not in the Spirit at all but reacting with the mind and the flesh. We, in the church, take far too much of our personal likes and make them theology. My mother told a story of a man upset because the name of Jesus was spoken at the end of the prayer and not the beginning. That kind of talk comes from incorrect doctrine, and his offense was the devil at work against him. Women speaking in the pulpit, women being pastors and teachers, is another area where men use their idea of God instead of the heart of God Himself. Read the gospel of Luke and note the number of times Jesus spoke to, healed, and worked with women. Many of them funded His ministry. The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 bought a field with her own money.

My point is, God plants the seed and nourishes it. We plant the weeds. We choose to have thorns. We allow the rocks and stir up the storm that ruins the harvest, then we become lost in the dust swirling around us, unable to sort God’s voice from our own and the millions of complaints around us. Strife and confusion are of the devil. We must lay down our arms, swallow our pride, and repent. The worst sermon I’ve ever heard was from the pulpit of the church. I took my disgust to the Spirit of God who then told me truth; He is truth. I now know why it upset me and what should have been said. Did I take this to anyone and force it upon them? No. Did I make it a public complaint? No. I prayed for the church and for the speaker to have wisdom and revelation of the truth, and I was (am) sincere in that. When people know the truth, they will stop speaking error.

Minister Bill Johnson prays sincerely for his enemies to be blessed, for their families to prosper, and their businesses or churches. His example returns to me again and again alongside my own, that I’d have no enemies. That no one would be able to offer a complaint because the Holy Spirit would constrain them. Not to protect me, but to protect them. Social media is not a forum meant for the devil. Man has used it to further secular thinking and demonic ideals and agendas, but God meant it for the spread of the gospel. People now know Jesus because they saw Him online, they heard Him in someone’s voice from far away. Reviews are meant to keep people from buying bad products and wasting their cash, not to destroy those we don’t like, even if what was read or seen was ungodly. How does your hatred minister to them? How does a rabid complaint against another Christian foster the unity of the body of Christ which Jesus died to give? If it makes you feel good but destroys them, then you need to pray first and forgive. Forgiveness is what Jesus suffered and died to bring to us, to pour over us.

In the midst of the dust storm comes a gentle wind, a breeze of the Spirit which He begs of us to enter, to stand and allow Him to cleanse hearts and minds through honest heart-felt worship. Just sit and drink Him in, make no schedule, have no agenda and no purpose but to soak in His presence. We hunger for a move of God without allow God to move. We’ve drawn the path for Him when it should be the other way around. He created the path and placed us as righteous upon it, where even if there is a shadow of death, we have no fear but will walk through it with Him. He doesn’t abandon us to it. He makes us resilient for it. Then even if others continue to fling sand in our faces, there’s a glass between us, a window with a view of the green fields ahead.

We don’t need to accept times of suffering from affliction and sickness, due to men’s arguments and hatred and stirred up strife. It isn’t inevitable that we fall into the snare of the fowler, but God desires to stand us where we can see the snake coming and already have God’s Word for him ready in our mouth. We can be out ahead with the map of the area, every divot, every pothole, every mountain in the way. Notice in the well-known psalm, the man walking with the shepherd intended to walk THROUGH the valley, in one side and out the other. God’s presence brought him comfort, stability, and notice also, his soul had been restored in advance. There was no struggle. That was the point. Instead, there was a table of plenty and an overflowing cup of God’s plenty, there encouraging us. And what was the end result? The goodness and mercy of God to follow us forever.

One thing is required —our submission. He is the Shepherd, the Sower, we are not. He is God. He died and He rose and He lives forever. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We must treat Him so and not fight over petty things, over differences that He created to make beauty, not conflict. That she is white and he is black is as God made them to be. That they are Asian and those are Egyptian is God. He turns no one away but so loved the world and sent Jesus for whosoever, for all, any, every, the whole. For that person who offended us, for the pastor of that church not like ours, and the one who writes our condemnation all over the place. He isn’t speaking for God. There is no condemnation in Him. None. Condemnation is from the devil, and God forbid, I pray, God forbid it ever come from my lips.

“For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” (Psalms 103:14)

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)

Image, Dust Storm approaching Stratford, Texas from Wikimedia Commons


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com