Devotion 329 - PETRIFIED

I remember that trip.

My dad was expected to be in Arizona for a week of meetings so he packed up our family of four intent on seeing the Grand Canyon.

I remember he drove twenty four hours straight to make his first meeting.  We relaxed and wove wonderful sights in between his busy, business schedule.

Mother and daddy insisted we would love the Grand Canyon.

At first it seemed so exciting.  We stopped often examining lots of things titled “Scenic Overlooks.”  My brother was 8 and I just 7-years old thought we were going to see the Wild West.  As the hours passed however the Wild West seemed nothing more than a very large hole in the ground.  We became disinterested and unfortunately let mom and dad know.  At the time we didn't realize the bigness of what we were seeing.

I figured a canyon no matter how grand was just a canyon.  Even today, forty years later, I often forget the bigness and the grandeur in life and far too often I forget the bigness of who I serve.

I had all but forgotten that trip, perhaps chasing it from the corners of my mind.  Perhaps I was hoping my children would not inherit my unthankful behavior.  I was sitting in my office when the memories came like a gentle wind.

At the tail end of that trip we drove through the desert.  My mom decided we needed some petrified wood as our souvenir.  Strange, both my daughters no matter where they travel pick up pocket fulls of rocks, sticks and shells as their souvenirs.  This they inherited from their Grandmother.  Mother’s pride on that journey was a large, exquisite piece of petrified wood.  She had to convince my father it was worth the space and weight he would forfeit in his trunk.  I remember our fascination with the wood turned to stone.

My father, the engineer-scientist, explained the process, and we had lots of hours in the car to listen.  The lack of oxygen causes the living organism to solidify or petrify.

I had forgotten that journey, that lesson, that rock solid piece of wood that sat on our fireplace for decades.  Then I heard a word that opened that chapter in my mind long since closed.

I had shared my office for five days with an auditor.  She was not a financial auditor, rather a person we hire to comb through every page of our process to insure we can continue to be certified to do what we do for the environment, safely.

It was grueling.  The woman KNEW her job.  She was an expert in every page of every certification and our work for five long days was held under a microscope.

On the fifth day she began her reports. So we sat across from each other as she typed and I answered some final questions.  I watched her body language hoping our processes were satisfactory but she seemed too tense.

It was not us, nor our processes but a news story and she asked my opinion.  Her words were exact and trembling.  “I am petrified of this situation,” she said, petrified of people who seem to hate everything we stand for, country, freedom and Christ.

The word and her demeanor were ill-fitting.  For five days, she had exuded confidence wielding a knowledge of federal law and citing word for word guidance documentation.  Now, she seemed fragile.  For five days I had wondered how the Lord fit into her busy, on the road 50-weeks each year schedule.

Perhaps He didn't.

I watched how a gregarious confident woman, now seemed frozen in fear, petrified.

And I remembered the wood, turned to rock and realized that is the goal of fear.

It withdraws our oxygen.  It attempts to shut off the power of the Holy Spirit, putting us behind the bars of terror. 

We are suddenly blind to His glory and His grandeur.  We put Him at our level as if He is “just” God.  When our hearts long to remember that He is a JUST GOD that has defeated the enemy of fear and its author. 

We forget in our immobile state that He can rescue us.  His ears burn to hear our cry and with it comes the infilling of His Spirit to bring us back to life.  We can move again.  We can breathe again.  We can hear His voice again.  We remember the words of Paul that our minds are to be “on things above not on things that are on the earth.”  Col 3:1

The things on the earth will fail us.  People will disappoint us.  Wood hardens and so do hearts.  But His glory and His mercy, they remain alive forever and always. 

He rejoices with us as we move towards Him.  Our fear is conquered and our hearts soften in beautiful surrender. 

 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  Ez  36:26