Slow and Stop

...Another peek into my lessons in the prayer chapel from a few years back. If you're trying to hurry God along right now {ahem...not that I would know anything about that...}, I encourage you to read what I learned that day.

My attention was pulled away from the green slate tiles because of the yellow shadow that began to fall across them as the sun peeked from behind a cloud outside.  Six stained glass windows lined the sides of the tiny chapel:  three on each side.  From my seat at the end of the pew, I had prime viewing of the pool of yellow that melted into red a few inches away. 

I glanced up at the windows, paying special attention to the detail that had been poured into their construction.  The careful choosing of the glass, the way the grain of color matched perfectly from piece to piece…I couldn’t imagine the hours of planning, choosing, cutting, soldering…what an amazing talent.  And to make each window so like the ones around it – it took great skill and patience.

But God drew my attention back to the floor – to the melting pool of colors.  I noticed the two colors:  yellow and red.  No others.  Just yellow and red.  Like a stop light.  Minus the green. 

Ahhh.  That is the next lesson.  There’s no green light cast on the floor – and not because it blended in with the green slate tile.  No green – and I knew in my heart that as desperately as I wished I could move into a relationship – in fact, the relationship – I did not have a green light yet.  All I had was yellow and red.  Slow and stop.  Those were my instructions for now.  Unlike the modified prayer dates of months gone past, these days were not to be about figuring out a specific man or pestering God about this choice or that.  No green lights existed just yet. 

This time was about slowing and stopping…and then cautiously starting up again.  My mind (led by God, no doubt) wandered back to my days of Drivers Ed when I had the “honor” of being the last driver of the trio of students in my car one particular day.  We were almost done with class and were headed back to the school we’d left a couple of hours earlier.  I was hungry and tired of driving.  As we approached the sole stoplight in our town, the green light turned to yellow.  Determined to end my misery of being the driver of the hour, I gunned it through the light.  I made it before it slid into red, but I did receive...admonition...from the teacher that yellow lights are meant to cause you to slow down, not to speed up. 

And so it seemed to be today.  Slow down.  Stop.  Don’t search for green lights.  Don’t try to hurry this process.  Just let it be. 

Satisfied that I had learned my lessons for the day, I raised my gaze to the front of the chapel.  On either side of the center alcove were two long, thin pieces of art.  On the left, red flames.  On the right, a silvery cloud.  I remembered from a tour of the chapel when it was first constructed that they represented the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire God used to lead the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land.

God spoke again.  Are you ready to let Me guide you on this journey?  I glanced back at the yellow and red floating in and out of intensity on the floor.  I knew the answer to that question would determine much about the outcome of this adventure of obedience.  I knew that to say yes would mean that at times, I’d see God’s direction so clearly.  Just like the flaming pillar that burned each night.  No mistake.  There it is.  And at other times, that direction wouldn’t be so bright.  It might just be a hazy cloud.  But it would still be.

Okay.

If God wanted to guide me through whatever means He thought best, I was willing to look for the direction.  Okay.  I will slow.  I will stop.  And I will look for Your direction.  Teach me to recognize the pillars You plan to use in my life so that I do not miss them and I am not pulled aside by imitation guidance thrown at me by Satan.

I learned that day that once you give God permission to lead, He doesn’t waste time getting started.