“He who puts his hand to the plow, and looks back, is not fit for the Kingdom of God” (Lk. 9:62)
I want to share an experience with you that taught me to never go backward, never compromise with what God has shown you. I think it has some prophetic significance for you as well.
A few years ago I was briefly involved with a television ministry. I say briefly because six months after they hired me to coordinate their discipleship program and lead their fellowship they decided they had made a mistake and I was the wrong person for this job. They started out saying this was not a religious thing but in the end it turned out to be a religious thing, and putting me in a religious thing is like trying to mix oil and water.
Well, to make a long story short, after six months I said you know, I believe we are at a crossroads here, and I suggest we take a week to just fast and pray and seek God about what our next steps should be. That was Sunday. On Wednesday the owner called me in and fired me. So it didn’t even take a week and I had my answer, although it wasn’t the answer I expected.
So I spent the rest of that week, not seeking direction, but coming to terms with the direction we had received. We lived at the beach and I went to one of the parks at the beach so I could walk the paths and be alone with the Lord. I selected the longest trail loop I could find and began to hike and to pray.
It was early in the morning, but if you know anything about July in North Carolina then you know it starts out hot and humid in the morning and just gets worse during the day.
So I was walking through the brush and swamps and creeks and it was hot and humid and sandy and not a breath of air was stirring, which is unusual for the beach.
Well, after a period of time I reached the halfway point in my prayer walk. I had been talking with the Lord about the situation. Once again, I had lost my job, lost my home, lost relationships with people we thought were friends, and so on. All because I refused to be religious, I refused to do all the things religious people expected, and I refused to compromise the simplicity of Christ and get legalistic and businesslike.
So I crossed the halfway point and right there in the path was this swarm of biting black flies. Just a cloud of them. I stopped and looked and a couple of them bit me so I took a few steps back and just looked at the cloud. And I thought, “Great. To get to the end I have to walk through this cloud of biting flies. But I’m halfway finished. It doesn’t matter if I go forward or backward on this loop, it’s the same distance either way. I can just retrace my steps, avoid this swarm of biting flies, and end up in the same place.”
So I stood there weighing my options and going back looked really appealing. Then it seemed as if the presence of the Lord settled around me and it just seemed to me that there was something prophetic about this experience. It was as if everything came to a stop and a great cloud of witnesses was looking down on me to see if I would take the easy path backward, or if I would take the difficult path forward. And although the decision was totally up to me, I had the sense that there was something prophetic in this decision. It would reveal something about my character. It would send a message in the spirit.
Now you might think that’s crazy, but that was the impression I had of that moment, and it just came upon me suddenly – the prayer walk, the path I had taken, the cloud of black flies, that moment of decision – all of it was ordered by the Lord to bring me to this point in time.
