What an incredible opportunity! Anytime you gather together believers for the express purpose of growing in discipleship, fellowship, and worshipship (no, it's not a word, but it's fun to use in this sentence), it blesses the heart of God. To see His children, hungry and open before Him, ready to receive all He has to give is a move of His Spirit. That is what is happening at Highland Lakes this weekend.

Somtimes we don't see things for what they are. We have 20/20 vision for our own needs and desires, and are farsighted for what He wants or needs from us.

Over the last year and a half that we have lived and worked at Highland Lakes, many were the times that BJ would come over to see me while I was working. The thing is, the camp is on a very winding, wooded road, which has yielded many accidents. I feared he would be one of them, as there are no direct routes from our home to camp, except down the highway. He generally chose a hike beside the highway, over indirect trails through the woods.

It makes sense I guess, but it always made me uneasy. I was sharing with a friend yesterday, that it feels unusual to think back and remember that I was more concerned about him making that quarter of a mile trek down the highway, than I was making a multi-thousand mile trip to a foreign country. I guess the difference is he was called to one, and just using common sense in the other.

How many times does using common sense lead us to danger's doorstep? When we are operating under our own good judgment we can make really bad desicions. Imagine seeing a gathering of policmen, and walking into their midst and bringing up something extremely controversial. Most of us would never do this. We would use "good judgment" and decide that doing so might land us in significant trouble.

How few of us would even do so if we felt God's Spirit directing us to. It's too risky, it doesn't make sense. To learn the kind of obedience that with each heartbeat you follow through and do whatever the Lord directs is a concept that we like to believe we are available for, but the reality is that most of us are too busy, or too distracted to see or hear that direction in the first place.

BJ was born with a hereditary vision problem. One that was incorrectable. One that most people did not realize he had. He learned to compensate, and he got by. How ironic that though he could not see well with his own eyes, his vision when it came to the Spirit of God leading him, was very close to 20/20.

He did march into the midst of policemen in a foreign counrty, one more dangerous than his own. He did share a controversial subject, at risk to himself and his team. But he knew that he was being obedient to the call of God in his life, so he went, and those policemen found salvation in Jesus Christ!!!

When was the last time I took a risk for my Lord? When will be the next time? Your physical vision does not matter. It is not what determines Christ-like obedience. Spiritual vision is. I am reminded that perhaps I need to have my spiritual eyes checked. While I'm at it Lord, will you take a look at my hearing?

dad