Impossible Possibilities

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings

“Adventure is out there!”  ‘Up’ by Pixar

This little hobbit is going on an adventure.  Sunday morning, bright and early, I will set out for the mountains of New York to take on a week of wonder, excitement, and adventure….and a hearty dose of God-breathed inspiration….at the 2015 Lamplighter Guild!  For those of you not familiar with this animal, Lamplighter Ministries publishes rare classic books for children, stories with strong, eternal messages.  Lamplighter Theatre produces audio dramas of these stories.  The Lamplighter Guild is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience designed to challenge, inspire, and empower young adults to use their God-given gifts in the creative arts to impact culture for His glory!  It is an intensive, hands-on  week of training in various creative arts fields, particularly the dramatic arts.  But from the testimonials and everything I have read about the heart behind the Guild, it is more than that.  It is first and foremost a week of learning to know our Creator better, so that we can more excellently reflect Him in our own creativity.  Many people have testified that this was a life-changing experience for them, both in their relationship with the Lord and in their pursuit of excellence in the arts for His glory.  I am privileged to be able to attend the Guild, and excited to see what God is going to do!

God gave me the vision to attend the Guild last summer, as I was talking with a few close friends and mentors about my dreams, the gifts God has put within me, and my struggle to know what I can do to develop these gifts and pursue His dreams for my life.  While compiling a list of ideas for pursuing the primary passion on my heart, namely writing, God brought the Lamplighter Guild to mind.  I had heard it advertised many times on the radio, while listening to some of the Lamplighter Theatre productions, and it sounded like an awesome opportunity!  But I never seriously considered going until that point last summer.  When I went to the Lamplighter Guild website and began reading about the event, I was captured!  My spirit resonated with the vision of the Guild creators and the testimonies of past students.  I immediately wanted to go, but the cost seemed prohibitive.  Still, God kept the dream alive in my heart over the next few months, and when I returned home from His Ranch in the fall, and He provided full-time work at a former job, I saw a ray of hope that I might be able to afford to attend the Guild after all! 

When I discovered that there was an attractive discount for registering and paying the full tuition amount by the end of the year, I wanted to be able to do that, but there was no way I would have enough money that quickly.  So as I prayed about these things and discussed it with my parents, I decided to take the step of reaching out to friends for financial support.  And Father blessed me with an outpouring of gifts that made it possible for me to pay the full amount by the discount deadline!  I am so grateful to God for making the way before me, and to all those friends who allowed Him to use their generosity to provide for me!  If any of you are reading this blog, you know who you are….Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

The initial provision of funds and the excitement of actually getting registered was a climax for me.  The months between now and then have felt rather anticlimactic.  These last couple of months in particular, as I have made the changes to move and help my grandparents, and as I have kept busy attending to their needs and settling in to a new routine, the Guild has only been a hazy thought in the back of my mind.  I have felt that I really should be doing something special to prepare myself for this big week, but I have been occupied with other things and have not given it much thought.  So now, the time has come.  And I don’t feel ready.  But what does “ready” feel like, anyhow? 

Just several days ago, I received an email from the Lamplighter staff with final reminders and information for the Guild, and attached was a hefty student handbook.  Scrolling down through the pages of the file, I began to feel overwhelmed.  Intense schedule.  Early mornings.  Pages of Scriptures and devotionals that will be used as a foundation of the spiritual teaching during the week, which I immediately began to think I needed to read and study through beforehand in order to be adequately prepared in my spirit for what God might want to speak to me.  Hours of classes and labs in the dramatic arts, where we will actually be creating and preparing dramatic presentations to give before an audience at the end of the week….a prospect that both excites and terrifies me!  

I began to feel like a fish out of water…..like I’m getting in over my head….letting fears and doubts creep in.  Fear that I’m going in half-cocked….that there I will be with very little actual experience in my field of interest and few accomplishments to show what I’ve been doing with my gifts….that all the other students will be younger, more energetic, more passionate about the arts, more creative and accomplished in what they are doing.  Fear that if I don’t put enough into preparing myself mentally and spiritually, I won’t be able to make the most of what I am given during this week.  Fear that I’ll be faced with things I don’t think I can do, and that when I am asked to stretch beyond my comfort level, I will hold back and miss what God would do in me.  Fear that after all the money other people have invested in me, and the prayers and support I have received, and the dreaming that I believed was from God….that in the end I will come away with no lasting fruit to show from this opportunity….no further direction in how God wants me to use these gifts….no fresh inspiration and vision to dream and do bigger….in a word, that I will have nothing to show. 

So there I was, just a few days away from this grand adventure, feeling worn and overwhelmed by fears and unbelief. 

But thanks be to God, who showed up with grace to help in my time of need!

Who do you think would like nothing better than to get me to believe I am defeated before I even walk onto the field? 

Who else?  Satan, that old snake.  Well, guess what, Master of Deceit….I am not biting this time.  I refuse to agree with you!  I belong to God, and what He does with this week is His business!

Even as I was pouring out my fears and frustrations to someone in an email, God began to speak to me.  He began to pour His peace into my spirit.  He reminded me of some truths from two God-inspired films that I just watched recently (for the zillionth time).  

This quote from the movie Pendragon: Sword of His Father…..”What God calls us to do, He gives us the strength to accomplish, the grace to live….or die….for His glory.”

I believe that God has called me to use the gifts He put within me for His glory.  Therefore, He has called me to write.  This is a passion that burns within me, no matter how much I neglect it or push it to the back burner of life.  I know, according to the Word of God, that He does not want me to neglect the gift that is in me.  He wants me to stir it up and fan it into flame!  He has NOT given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind!  (2 Tim. 1:6-7)  When I began asking Him what action steps I could take to develop and pursue this gift, He laid the Lamplighter Guild on my heart.  So I choose to believe God has called me to attend the Guild!  And whatever results come of it will not be my power, but by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within me!  “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.”  Zech. 4:6

Whether I perceive the week as life-changing, or whether I leave with more questions than I came with, God will provide grace.  What He asks of me is to receive that grace.  In a manner of speaking, to “take the adventure that comes to me”!

The other inspiring message that God reminded me of is from the movie Facing The Giants.  Every time I watch this movie, I am challenged afresh and take away something new.  Incidentally, I am going to have the blessing of hearing one of the producers of the film, Stephen Kendrick, speak at the Guild, and maybe I’ll even get to meet him! 

In this movie, a story is told of two farmers who desperately needed rain, and both of them prayed for rain, but only one went out to prepare his fields to receive it.  Coach Taylor, desperately needing a breakthrough for his life and his football team, is exhorted, “God will send the rain when He’s ready.  But you need to prepare your field to receive it.”  God shows him how to do this, and sure enough, the rain comes, and God does above and beyond what anyone could have dreamed!  I think God is telling me that going to this week at the Lamplighter Guild is a way for me to prepare my “field” for rain.  He will bring the increase….all He asks of me is to be open to His working and come with a spirit that says “Yes!” to Him, to whatever He puts before me! 

My favorite scene in Facing the Giants is at the end of the championship football game, when the little Christian school team has come further than anyone had imagined they could, they are playing against the Giants, a team three times their size, and it all comes down to the last two seconds on the clock….Coach Taylor decides to try for a 50 yard field goal.  And the player he taps for this seemingly impossible feat is David, a 130 pound backup kicker who is just in his first year of football.  When the other coaches ask Taylor what in the world he is doing, he says….”I’m preparing for rain.”  As David prepares for the kick, he is already in defeat, believing that there is no way he can make it.  During one last time-out, Coach Taylor asks him, “Do you believe God can help you make this kick?”  David has to admit that God can, if He wants to.  The Coach goes on to tell him that no matter what happens, whether they win the game or not, they are going to praise God, but that David has to give his absolute best to God and let Him take care of the results.  I love the moment when he says, “Don’t you walk off this field having done anything less than your best!”  If you’ve seen the movie, you know that David changes his thinking, choosing to believe that God can do anything, and he goes for broke with that kick…..and he makes it!  The team with the longest losing streak become state champions, and God gets all the glory!  A little later on, in the locker room, as the boys are celebrating, Coach Taylor asks David to step forward, and this is what he says to him…..”Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you’re second rate, under par, or inferior.  I just watched God do a miracle through you.  I saw a whole field of Giants, 85 to be exact, fall in defeat!  Now you tell me, what’s impossible with God?”  And the answer?  “Nothing, Coach.”

God is speaking to me through these scenes, telling me that it’s not about who I am or what I think I can or can’t do.  He wants me to get my eyes off myself, quit with the little pity party, and believe that He is who He says He is, and that in truth, NOTHING is impossible for Him to do in my life!  He’s asking me to give Him everything I’ve got this week, and to leave the results up to Him.  And He has promised that His grace will be sufficient for me….that where I am weak, He is stronger still and delights in showing off His glory through little lives that are yielded to Him!

One final encouragement that God gave me is from the book of Revelation, chapter 3, in the letter to the church at Philadelphia.  Jesus tells this church that He holds the key that can open every door….that what He shuts, no can open, and what He opens, no one can shut.  He says,  “See, I have placed before you an open door!  I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept My word and have not denied My name.”  A little later He exhorts them to “hold on to what you have, so that no one can take your crown.” 

What I hear Jesus telling me is He can open any door He chooses for me, if it will bring Him glory. If I hold fast to Him and believe His word…that He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all I can ask or imagine….then I will have the grace to walk through that open door into His dreams for my life!  I must resist the devil’s lies by refusing to deny that Jesus is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE!  If I live this way, He will let me be a part of His redemption and restoration story in the world, and He will be waiting to welcome me into His glory one day soon, to share in the incredible rewards of what HE has accomplished! 

So is the Lamplighter Guild beyond me?  Yes.  Are the dreams God has put in my heart to use writing and other gifts beyond me?  Yes.  On my own I can do nothing.  BUT…..these things are NOT BEYOND MY GOD!  Nothing is beyond my God….NOTHING! 

And He is your God, too.  He longs for every one of His children to soar high in this kind of faith, believing in the God who does the impossible!

The one who gave the vision still calls.  He has a purpose for my life and for yours that goes far beyond one single week in time or a certain experience or limited human capabilities.  What is He calling you into, for such a time as this?