It was a normal day, slightly warmer than your average spring day, and I was at Quinn’s piano lesson. When it’s warm out, her piano teacher has a sunroom at her house that I love to enjoy.
On this particular day, the clouds were puffy, and I was just getting comfortable in the big chair to read my cozy book. Since the idea of Cloudle came to be, I notice clouds a lot more. I looked out at the lake, and, as if it were a piece of art, my eyes wandered to the clouds. The main view was the lake, but any artist knows that a piece of art needs movement. Art is designed to draw the viewer’s eyes from one part of the painting to another. This is called Compositional Flow or Visual Movement.
I went to college for Elementary Education and found myself majoring in visual art. I knew when I graduated that I wouldn’t teach; I never thought I’d be sharing my knowledge on a blog or that God would use what I had learned in a college class now. God works in mysterious ways.
As I looked out at the lake, my eyes wandered to the many pine trees, varying in height, structure, and shape, to the blue sky, and, specifically, to the clouds. My eyes locked onto these two clouds.
Immediately, I saw a tortoise and a hare. And then instantaneously, I was given this vision: I was the hare. The tortoise had just started the race, and I (the hare) had already lapped him and was moving swiftly to the finish line. I saw the hare in a full-out sprint, ears flying behind her, all four legs in the air.
As God always does, He gently, without shame, pointed out that the hare was running in circles; she was running fast, but going nowhere. The tortoise represented Jesus and the pace at which he operates and he wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere.
And that’s when this vision of me that had been popping up in my prayer time came up, and I saw it with a different understanding.
That vision was this: Me, walking through a desert. It’s desolate, sandy, so sandy, soft sand too, so it’s hard to walk through it, and in front of me, Jesus. I just see the back of his feet and the prints in the sand that he leaves for me to follow. Whenever I look away from Jesus, it’s desolate, it’s dry, there’s no life, and it’s miserable.
As I’ve been walking through what I’ve dubbed the wilderness, I find that the biggest temptation for me in this wilderness season is the temptation to get out of it by almost every means necessary. That usually looks like control. Trying to control different circumstances that I actually can’t control. But I continue to try.
I am in a hurry to get out of this season of the wilderness. I’m in a hurry to get to the “Promised Land.” I’m in a hurry to get out of the desolate desert.
Almost two months ago, there was movement in our adoption journey, and I found myself reaching out to our agency every two weeks, asking for an update, “even if it’s not really an update,” but I just wanted something. I found that through that I lost my peace. I let those emails be my assurance instead of letting God be my complete assurance. He is the only one who gives me complete assurance. So I asked Him what he wanted me to do about emailing our agency, and He said, “Wait.”
You see, emailing our agency because we’re hopeful for an update or movement isn’t a bad thing, but when we rely on it over relying on God, we will lose our peace. Because we will never be wholly at peace unless we are wholly assured in God. My assurance had shifted just a little bit. Thankfully, as I’ve grown, I’m able to read the check engine light of my heart when anxiety arises and not let the anxiety spiral into panic or looping thoughts. It’s a chance for me to refocus on Jesus.
When I chose to let my hope and assurance be in those emails because I felt like I needed to control something, some people would say, “I had wandered from the path.” And that can allow shame to creep in. “The path” is up and down, looped around, straight and narrow, curvy and wide, yet Jesus never leaves us. We never have to “find” Jesus. He’s always right there with us. He was with me when I hastily sent those emails to our agency, and He wasn’t disappointed in me for doing that, nor did He shame me. He gently used my body and my awareness to anxiety to bring my awareness to my check engine light. From there, I was able to confess and refocus on Him.
When we keep our focus on Him and live in our true identity, we live like a tortoise. Content. That tortoise can’t get places very fast, yet it’s not complaining. It’s enjoying the journey. When I stick to Jesus’ pace, I get to live life to the full. I have complete freedom. I get to live in grace, not in shame from myself or others.
The hare lives life in the fast lane, rarely checking its engine, consistently living in false beliefs that make it just keep doing laps, circling back around because it can’t move forward unless “_____” happens, and is constantly finding the next thing so that maybe, just maybe, the looping thoughts will stop, the negative self-talk will be quiet, the lies will be replaced with truth, and the hare will finally be able to be content. Yet, the hare will never get to any sort of whole peace because it’s looking for divine-natured things in worldly, fickle things.
Did I have hare energy one day? Yep. But as I continue to be in a reciprocal relationship with Jesus, I find that my true identity is in the tortoise, and when I see hare energy in me, it’s an opportunity to refocus on Jesus. Because honestly, I’m exhausted just by looking at the life of the hare. Jesus told his disciples, “Follow me,” and that means to walk the same path of life that He walked.
That’s why all our paths are different. And each of our own paths takes different forms because we are human and we each have traumas, hurts, life stories, and upbringings. But whether you are a believer or not, you are an image bearer, and Jesus is always with you. So no matter where you go or what path your false beliefs take you down, Jesus has never left you.
God’s creation always points to Him. It is impossible, and we have no excuse as image bearers of God not to see who God is in His creation.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Romans 1:20 NIV
It’s amazing what I’ve learned since I started intentional listening prayer. It’s experiential and special. It allows for deeper trust and unashamed rest. It allows for a slow life, consistently, expectantly waiting for what Jesus has to say to me. It takes away the pressure of trying to figure it all out or having it all figured out.
Thanks to two clouds and my awareness on that day, Jesus so gently reminded me that tortoise energy is where true identity lies. Not in a laxadazial way, but in an intentional, putting one foot in front of the other kind of way. The hare lives in a false identity, feeling the pressure to figure it all out, to lean on her own strength, and to believe lies that keep her running in circles.
We see this in Exodus when the Israelites are in the wilderness. Their biggest temptation was getting out of there as fast as they could, because they lived in fear and doubt. They saw themselves as grasshoppers (a false identity), which caused them to roam the desert for 40 years. They were right on the cusp of getting to the Promised Land, but the spies came back scared of the giants. Joshua and Caleb were the only two Israelites who believed God would keep his covenant with them. And so, like the tortoise, they put one step in front of the other, and slowly they made it to the Promised Land over a 40-year journey.
Joshua and Caleb had tortoise energy. The Israelites as a whole had hare energy. It’s so easy to have hare energy because, as humans, when we encounter something scary, the unknown, or the uncomfortable, we revert to something that feels comfortable, whether it’s a good habit or a bad one. Even then, God meets us where we are. He doesn’t wait for us to be in a different mindset; he is willing to work with us wherever we are. He just wants the truth of how we feel, what we’re scared of, what we doubt, etc. Then he starts there and starts to remold our hearts to look more like His.
So start today. Start right now. What can you truth tell to Jesus right now? I promise that He will meet you there. Then, as He tells you the truth to combat the lies, get out of your shell, and take your first steps of living out that truth.
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