There’s a certain time of the year when that happens, but I’m
always surprised by it. I forget from one year to the next, and when I smell
that luxurious smell, I wonder what it is every time. And then I see the
cascade of honeysuckle and remember that it’s honeysuckle time again.
It made me start to think about the times in my life that
are like that – the times when the blessings of God seem to be pouring down and
I feel surrounded by His sweetness and love. There’s a passage in Exodus 33
when Moses asks the Lord to show him His glory. The Lord's answer is one of the sweetest
passages. “The Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you,
and I will proclaim my name, The Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
But,’ He said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.’ Then
the Lord said, ‘there is a place near me where you can stand on a rock. When my
glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock, and cover you with my
hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my
back, but my face will not be seen.” (verses 19-23) I love that image of the Lord
covering Moses with His hand to protect him. Even Moses, who God loved and
spoke to as a friend (verse 11), could not see His face and live because he was
still human, but God wanted to answer his request, and so He arranges it in the
best way that He can to protect and cover Moses while still allowing him to see
His glory.
We can talk to God as a friend. We do need to remember that
He is holy, so holy that we cannot see His face and live, because we do need to show Him the respect that is due Him, but He will show us
His glory, and He loves to talk to us in a comfortable way. There are times for
formal prayers, but there are also times when we can just talk to God and pour
out our hearts. We can ask Him questions and we can ask for His help. In verses 12-13 we read, “Then Moses said
to the Lord, ‘You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not
let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and
you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways
so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” He continues in verse
15, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How
will anyone know that You are pleased with me and with Your people unless you
go with us? What else will distinguish me and Your people from all the other
people on the face of the earth?”
I was talking to a man once after a church service, and I
mentioned that I was having a struggle with a situation that I needed prayer
for. He talked with me about Moses, and how Moses spoke with God. He was always
respectful, but he did tell God that there were things he needed in order to
keep walking on the path that God had set him on. God doesn’t mind when we go
to Him and ask for His help and His blessing on our work. In fact, He wants us
to do just that. He wants us to ask Him to help us move forward so that we know
that it was not of ourselves that were able to do what we did, and that it was
the glory and the power of God and that He chose to bless us.
I can go about my business doing things on my own, but if I
have the power of the Lord God Almighty to help me, why wouldn’t I ask Him? It
seems an easy thing, but sometimes we have a hard time with that because we do
want to do things on our own and we do want to get all the glory. And God will
let us try, and He might even let us get to a certain point, but we’ll get so
much farther if we ask for His help and His blessing as we move forward with
our plans.
I had a beautiful confirmation yesterday about a promise God
made to me, a word He spoke to me that began in 2006 and was expanded on in
2008. The word that came in 2006 was from Zechariah 8:4-6, “This is what the
Lord Almighty says, ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the
streets of Jerusalem, each one of them with a cane in hand because of their
age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.’ This
is what the Almighty says, ‘It may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people
at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me?’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
When He gave me that word, He was referring to the housing projects He had sent
me to work in. I was the director of an after school program, and I couldn’t
figure out why He was sending me of all people to work with inner city youth in
one of the most dangerous places of the city. But He just kept saying to look
through His eyes. He had to be with me every step of the way, because if He
wasn’t with me, if it was not God Almighty Himself who sent me, I could not do anything there on
my own.
In 2008, He took me on an early morning walk as the sun was
rising over the ocean in Rhode Island, in my favorite place in the world. As I
walked He reminded me of that word, and said that the work I did in those
projects would expand and the youth would have a place to go in the country – a
house on a cliff just there overlooking that beach, a place where they could go
to learn about nature and fresh fruit and vegetables from a farm. Where they
could swim in a pristine ocean and run in the fields. He reminded me that there
is nothing that is impossible for Him (Matthew 19:26), a word from a scripture
that He knows means a lot to me because that is the answer Jesus gives when He is asked, “Who then
can be saved?” He answers, “With man this is impossible but with God all things
are possible.” In that passage they are referring to the rich young ruler who
does not immediately sell everything and give his money to the poor in order to
follow Jesus, but in my case, the reason that passage means a lot to me is
because He knows that I know that His saving me was something that was only
possible for God. I had been so lost that it is a miracle of His mercy and
grace and compassion that I was found. He will have mercy on whom He chooses to
have mercy and compassion on whom He chooses to have compassion. There is nothing impossible for God.
The confirmation that came yesterday came out of the blue,
the way that the sweet aroma of honeysuckle seemed to appear out of nowhere. I
was at a reception at a church I have been working with, and a Pastor
introduced herself to me and asked if I had a few minutes to speak with her. She
is the Senior Pastor’s wife, and someone who I would have time for any day
because I respect their ministry so much. It was an honor and a blessing to sit and speak with her like that. I had actually met her back in 2007,
right after the Lord gave me that first word from Zechariah 8, and I told her
that. I had given her my business card then because the Lord had spoken to me
that there was something she was doing that was connected with youth that was connected
with that word that He had given me. And now here she was introducing herself to
me, and telling me there was something she had an idea about, and the idea was
the same vision He’d given me in 2008. When I met her in 2007, she wasn't working with youth in the way she is now and did not have the vision she had. The Lord had not yet given me the vision that He gave me in 2008. But He knew what He would be speaking to us both, and so He showed me then that there would be a connection now.
When Moses comes down from the mountain after seeing the
Lord’s glory, his face is so bright with the glory of the Lord that he has to
cover it so that the people can look at him. Right after I spoke with the
Pastor, I met a woman I hadn’t seen since 2008. She had worked with me in the after
school program for a summer, and she was at the same church service and came
over to say hello. She told me I was glowing – I had seen the glory of the
Lord. It is no accident that she was the person I met just then - she had been a blessing of God to me then, someone He had sent to work with me who has such a sweet and humble spirit and a knowledge of and trust in the power of God. Seeing her brought me right back to those days in the projects and the glory that the Lord showed me when He answered my request that He stay with me always so that I could continue doing the work that He had asked me to do.
There is such a sweetness that comes over me when I feel the
blessing of God. There are times when things are so hard and everything is
coming against me, and it seems at those times that I must have fallen out of
God’s favor – if I have His blessing, why would I be having problems? But that
is what happens sometimes. When the blessing is great, the obstructions can be
greater. But after a time of struggle, when I have been calling out to God,
asking Him to be with me, then the sweetness comes and I understand that He
always was and always will be.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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