A few days ago while sitting at my writing desk, in a moment of thoughtful surrender, I looked out the window and spotted a lizard trapped between screen and glass. Poor little thing I thought as I watched tiny toes grip miniscule holes, his thin lime green body facing away from me, head like the end of a spear cocked back in my direction. It’s as if he was begging me for rescue.
And then I turned back to my piece of writing and forgot about it.
After all, lizards are called the wisest of wise creatures in the book of Proverbs, sneaking into palaces of kings. I thought he’d surely find a way out of that predicament.
But today, sitting in the same place, sunlight illuminates a modern masterpiece left from overnight heavy rainfall, splotches of water clinging to screen with silhouette of lizard the central focus.
I am that lizard, trapped in the in-between and waiting for rescue.
Between life as we know it and an imminent departure to London, a lack of concrete details keep us stuck in no man’s land. This place can feel like solitary confinement, a prison with no hope of getting out.
As I write out these 31 Days to London, I’m echoing the psalmist, “Jesus, I’ve thrown my lot in with you; you won’t embarrass me will you?” (Psalm 25:3 MSG)
The mind is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked but sometimes that is all you’ve got. That’s why on days like this I’m thankful for a tribe of prayer warriors who pray me out of my head and into my heart.
H and I have enlisted a team of thirty saints that keep us on the frontlines of their prayer life. A few interact with me daily with prophetic words of wisdom and encouragement. Two of which I’ve yet to meet in real life. And writing about them feels sacred like I need to take my shoes off before I share about them publicly.
Their prayers have rescued me from a dark place on more than one occasion. They have also celebrated in my successes. Thank you seems trite and woefully insignificant for mid-wives to hope.
The way I overcome the pain of a desperate waiting period is to pray other people out. Right in our spheres of influence many are suffering in their own waiting periods, sick and tired of being sick and tired. Those who are under the weight of debt and doubt, unemployment and grief; loss of a life they once knew or perhaps envisioned.
We all need the assurance that our waiting on God isn’t in vain; that none who wait on God will be ashamed.
After I told H about that lizard, he gently pushed the window open, unlatched the screen and the wisest of wise creatures quickly fled from a window prison, free to roam in a pile of soppy leaf litter.
No matter how wise God makes you, sometimes rescue is required. And they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength isn’t just a careless wish written in the book of Isaiah. It’s a promise to those of us trapped in-between. Release is sure and it is coming.
Christ did not seek to enjoy the Father’s love for Himself; He passed it all on to us. All true seeking of God and His love for ourselves, will be inseparably linked with the thought and the love of our brethren in prayer for them. ~Andrew Murray
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