"And when David enquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines." 2 Samuel 5:23-24 [KJV]
Looking again at yesterdays' scripture I'd like to focus on "the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees". The phrase "a sound of a going" literally means "the noise of marching", it refers to the clank and clatter of an army on the move and speaks of the pounding of feet and the rattle of equipment. The ancient Jewish rabbis taught that this sound was the angelic host marching to the battle. Others believe that God is simply saying that He will send a wind to stir the mulberry tree tops to let David know that it is time to move - and that is exactly what God has been saying to me.
Each day when I go to work I now smile when I pass the mulberry tree outside my office, I listen for that 'sound of a going' but, like David, it is a time of waiting to allow the Lord to go before me and prepare the way. We are all in a spiritual war, our battles may be different, but we all have them. I believe God has been teaching me 'how' to wait.
Because of my workload my habit is often to work through my lunch hour and, even having done that, I am frequently still there after hours in the evening. Too often when life is so busy it is difficult to make time for God, but that is when we need him the most. During my 2 weeks summer holiday, part of which was spent at New Wine, the Lord challenged me to hand my time back to him and to resume my prayer journal. Although the school had broken up for the summer my workload is unchanging, being an independent school we are a business and there are constant deadlines to meet. During the week I was obedient and 'pressed in', I got up even earlier to spend more time than usual in prayer before work, like David I "enquired of the Lord" and sought his will, I kept my journal and set a daily lunch date with God on my phone for 12.30pm which, when the alarm went off told me I had a 'Divine Appointment'.
In the following 2 weeks guess what happened?...........things went from bad to worse! Instead of redeeming my time it seemed He was dumping even more work on me, I would go down by the riverside at lunch and sob my heart out, I would wrestle with my father "You know how hard this truly is", I would enquire of him WHY?' there were no immediate answers but I sensed the 'unseen' was happening. As I left work I declared almost in tears "It's just too much"! before the words had even left my mouth the Lord replied via a street name right next to where I work, I had passed this daily but never before noticed the name of the street which read..........'MULBERRY TREES'. He was there, he is always there with his angelic host in the midst of all our battles.
Dawn Milward
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