Among other things, he encouraged me to write. The timing was nothing less than divine. He became my lifeline. I drank deeply from the silver chalice he offered me. I gulped as if there would be no more. Maybe I knew there was a desert ahead. I drank all of him I could hold. I reached out to possess him with all my skills, but thank God he kept his distance. In spite of his humanity, he remained for me, a man of honor. He was a true Prince among men.

He encouraged me to get back into church. I did and was soon led to publicly rededicate my life to the work that had started almost 20 years before. It had not been my first time at the altar, but I knew that for the first time I had a full understanding of what it meant to be there. I was finally willing to count the cost.

I grew quickly in the knowledge of who I am in Christ. As I continually devoured His every word like a starving and greedy child, it soon became evident that I had to let go of my Prince.

Dreading what would come, I considered what it meant to let him go. Then I grabbed on to Jesus for dear life. There was nothing else for me. It took many weeks but the events in his life eventually made the choice easy. But isn’t that when the greatest work is able to be done? When we are broken and there is nowhere else from where we are able to gain comfort?

It was soon, after I realized that final distraction had to be removed from my life that the depression I had been fighting off for so many years was finally able to catch up with me. It drowned me. It made me beg for death. It stripped me of my pride. It loosed my grip on everything in my life because even the smallest things were to heavy for me to carry. Even the smallest weight would drag me deeper into that pit of darkness.

I clutched the word in my heart and the hem of His garment with my hands and my Lord, the Love of my live, pulled me, gently, close to His heart. I knew that I was safe. He sent me a prophet, to feed me from the throne of God. A friend who brought Christ so near that I could hear the beat of his heart.

Jesus took the tattered and bloody garments that I had fashioned for myself and laid them aside. It was as if I stood before Him, fully exposed, for the very first time. I was vulnerable, but He never took advantage of me as have so many others before. I was wounded and He applied His healing balm. When the stench of my rotten flesh reeked to high heaven, He didn’t push me away. I was worthless, and He offered me His kingdom. I was empty and He filled me to overflowing with His Living Waters.

There is still work that is being done. But as long as I allow myself to be led by that still small voice, by that whisper that is His Spirit’s call, I am willing to keep on. Even when all I can do is take one more step, I take it, knowing that I am Walking in His Spirit!

My prophet has left, my Prince is gone, but still I am His servant and in His service. I'm still learning to do life in His time, and not mine.

walkininthespirit