That Still Small Voice

It has been a while since my last post, amazing how the time flies along and before you know it several months have passed. Recently I got the opportunity to be a proud Daddy and travel to Oklahoma City and watch my youngest son Derek Zimmerman (AKA DZ) bring the Word and rightly divide it before 145 homeless people at a Downtown Nazarene Church. My Lord has a call on Derek's heart and I know that soon he is going to be doing amazing things in his life.
It seems like recently every time I went to fire up this blog site to write some thoughts down, life just got in the way. While certainly hearing my youngest son, once addicted to drugs, alcohol and tobacco, now freed from all of them to preach to those still lost was fantastic!!!! Other times it just seemed like I did not follow what the Lord would have me do and I did not follow through.
Now as I sit down to this computer tonight to sit down my thoughts I have just come off a couple of days where I was going through the motions. Have you all ever done that? You showed up and you were walking and talking but when all was said and done you were simply just like an actor playing a part and nothing real was coming out!
I knew this was happening and while I was not pleased about it, I just seemed like I could not get anything solved. This morning I woke up and was going to play that same note, just go through and get on through to the other side, when God showed up!!!
In his loving gentle manner, he allowed His still small voice that Elijah heard on Mount Horeb to play a part in my life. I was reading Proverb 26 and I realized that this Proverb, unlike many of the others that are in the book, had no benefits of what we can get when we follow the Lord. No, the entire Proverb was about the foolish and the wicked and the dangers of running with that crowd. Solomon was writing about the slothful, the fool, the talebearer, and how "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein; and he that rolleth a stone it will return upon him." (v.27) The more I pondered the words of this Proverb, the more I was pierced through by my Father's voice telling me to get up and get going!!!!
I realized that I did not want to fall into a pit or have a stone roll back on me, I did not want to be the slothful, the talebearer, but rather I wanted to be the child that listened to his Heavenly Father and simply be obedient.
Later this morning, as I was teaching our Senior and Jr High Youth at my Church, Carrollton Church of the Nazarene, I was struck once more by how the Lord is with us always. I had been teaching on Ephesians 5, but had come across Ephesians 6:19. I like to look at preceding and succeding chapters around something God has revealed to me so I really do not miss anything and on this particular morning as I was sharing with the youth. I was struck by this verse;

"And for me, that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel."

God was dropping the scales off of my eyes and heart and even at this point he was not quite done with me as I and my wife, Kathy, attended the Sunday Evening Class at Temple Baptist Church where Richard Wallace Jr has been teaching from the Steven Currington Book "BattleShip." The book is showing the different forms of Ships we as Christians should be building (Worship, Fellowship, etc.) Tonight we were finishing out Relationship. It was there that God drove the last point home as Richard was saying it was vital for us to have someone we can develop our Shipbuilding skills as there is a world crying and dying for a word from someone who can tell them how to obtain Joy and Peace and Life. To be a Shipbuilder not only for ourselves but for others and I was reminded once again of Ephesians 6:19.

My God is Great and Gracious and the past several days of my just blowing through life has come to an end and I am taking each moment as a precious jewel and am praying for that Boldness of utterance to someone who is waiting for such lifegiving words.

I pray that each of you have a marvelous week and I also pray that you have the opportunity to be a Shipbuilder for others!!

Blessings

Mike Z.