moonbow

It is easy in this world to become blasé about signs, visions and conversations with God, because people are telling us it is happening all around us. Some people are having entire paragraphs or directives from the Lord, others get a single word.

And more get nothing, they don’t hear an audible voice.

Some people have divine dreams and visions and are able to make sense of their purpose, some write books on their visions, some don’t.

And more get nothing, they don’t dream of divine things and they don’t have visions.

Some people after talking with the Lord will see a rainbow in the sky or a bird will come to them or some other part of creation makes itself known. Some write books about it, others write blogposts, others don’t.

And more get nothing, they see nothing in creation that is giving them a sign.

How does God speak to you?

Through nature? Through dreams & visions? Through an audible voice? A combination of them all? Or nothing?

I was walking in the woods with a friend the other week and they were wondering what God wanted them to do next and wondering why another friend was told expressly their next move and why they weren’t.

There was a guy in Scotland (I am sure he is famous but my memory does not serve me well in this instance) who was praying as he walked home during the night across a dangerous path, he suddenly got the urge to go a different direction. The next morning he got back to the spot and realised he had been stopped from plunging into a quarry. He took this as a sign to move in particular direction.

I was literally silenced earlier this year, having a bout of laryngitis that made it hard to speak and impossible to sing. My voice moved from a barely audible whisper to fishwife via big gruff man through a squeaky cartoon voice and bake to the whisper. So I stopped talking where possible and stopped singing altogether. I am not sure my singing voice will ever come back but it doesn’t stop me dancing.

However He wants to use me, I will do it.

Which brings me back to moonbows.

I didn’t know moonbows existed when I experienced one. It took some googling and FBing to find what I saw. I have blogged a few times about the experience and last night I looked at it with fresh eyes. I was talking to a friend who may or may not be leaving my community and we were talking about God’s provision both in terms of signs and wonders but also in practical matters. It was really good to connect with someone who was in a situation of shifting sand, as I am but who was holding strong to her anchor, as I am.

Driving from her home it was raining heavily with lots of weird traffic, lots to concentrate on, but I just kept remembering the moonbow. So much of my life has changed since that moment. As I plunge into deeper water later this week, diving in by faith alone, I realised I didn’t need a moonbow anymore, or a rainbow, or an audible voice. God moves in me so subtly it is almost imperceptible manner.

Yesterday in the morning service I handed out the reading, I didn’t know why I did it that way, I have never done it before. And I didn’t know what it was to achieve, but I did it because of the compulsion within. At the end of the service, as circled words and phrases were read out, I realised why and spoke about it and amazingly watched physical “A-ha” moments filter over the congregation. The looks were great to see, it tied the whole service up so they could take it home and unwrap it – if they dared.

A friend commented on an event from last year which I had forgotten but I was then in the company of the other person and asked them did they remember. We both concurred that so much “weird” had happened since then that it seemed much, much longer than a year. It is the “weird” stuff, I think, where God is speaking. The Godincidences, the conversations & the physical interactions are all part of it.

We still pretty much live in the times of “if a man stands up on a bus and says he is god, we commit him.” Talking of signs, wonders, audible voices are not in mainstream society and when they are mentioned, people scoff, laugh, pass it off as something else.

Moonbows are special, they don’t occur very often, a special set of circumstances has to take place. They can not be recreated with glass beads and strong light. I don’t need to see another to know I am on the right path. I am in full, thankful and grateful that I was given one. God took one broken human and made me new, beautiful on the inside, fit for His purpose.

A retired clergy told me a few months ago: it is obvious to all, but I needed it to be obvious to me. I think clarity is coming, the fog is lifting to a fine mist. I am remembering the moonbow and moving forward with the word given to me recently by a godly man: Noble.

How do I grow to fit into the shoes of “Noble?”

Time will tell.