Yesterday I set up a new playlist called “chill out”. My goal was to listen to this playlist on my way home from work so I would be calm during the journey of over 1 hour with about 2 million people (not exaggerated). As I was changing trains, my shuffle took me to a song I have not heard for a while. It was a CD given to me by a good friend Brad Hinton.
I thought about Brad and started to remember a story that is a great illustration of where I am spiritually and how the song lifted my spirits. So God really does control your IPOD!
Brad and I met in graduate school in Auburn and became great friends. He helped me on my first “missionary” project of starting a Bible study with our classmates in our MBA program. One day we decided to go on a hike in the Tuskegee National Forest. We were going to pray and talk about life, which meant asking what God wanted from us after grad school. I was deciding on going overseas and Brad was deciding on a large option of employers, he was a lot better student than I was. haha. Being smart graduate students, we forgot water and it was extremely hot that day, but we laughed because it was going to be a short walk. The laugh was on us because we ended up lost in the middle of a huge national forest. I remember at one point being exhausted, hot and frustrated and thinking “what are we going to do?”. Our choices were simple, keep walking until we see something familiar like a road, or try to retrace our steps. We both decided that retracing our steps was not a good option because we were talking the entire time and not paying attention.
At this point down memory lane, the words to the song on my IPod started to catch my attention ,and I made a comparison of where I was spiritually. The song is ” You are still Holy” and the part that caught my attention was:
My situation
– Holy, you are still holy even when darkness surrounds my life.
– Sovereign, you are still sovereign even when confusion has blinded my eyes.
Prayer
– I want my life to be a pure reflection of Your Love
Outcome
– So I come to your chambers and dance at Your feet, Lord
– You are my Savior and I am at Your Mercy
– All that has been in my life up to now belongs to You
– I BELONG TO YOU
– FOR YOU ARE STILL HOLY
Amen
So this is how God directed my IPOD to take me through a string of thoughts that brought me to His chamber and led me to dance at his feet and I felt the wonderful freedom of being at His Mercy. I still have confusion and the situation still is dark, but I know that Joy comes in the morning.
Our family has remembered this verse:
Romans 15:13 “May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in Hope.”
We continue walking forward in the forest with Hope as our guide. We know trying to go “back” is not an option, but we must believe, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will abound in Hope that we will see something familiar.
As for me and Brad, we finally found the road, and after hours of walking, we found his car. Other than the practical lesson of taking water on a hike, God waited 9 years to show me the spiritual lesson – in the subway in Hong Kong.
Blessings,
Jay
(See picture under same title on the left)