Hey friend, let me tell you about that time when God told me to wear jean shorts to church and it exploded magic in my life. So I was getting ready to go to church today. My Mother-In-Love had come to take the kids for the day (thank you Mom so much for that - you have no idea how much that helps) and I started to get ready to go to church by myself. I suddenly had the strongest urge to wear my jean shorts. Like, I HAD to wear them today. This never happens to me. Seriously, like I wear the same jeans for days sometimes or I just grab whatever I see first. But this morning was different and I started searching for my jean shorts. Not in the clean laundry pile, not in the dirty laundry hamper. . . where were they? Oh, clean and folded in my pants drawer. Of course, exactly where they should be. After I had my shorts on, the rest just didn't seem to matter. I grabbed my swimsuit top without even thinking, my cowboy boots because they are so awesome and my winter jacket of course, because it was only +1 outside that day.
Seriously, it made no sense whatsoever to be wearing shorts - no logic at all and I even thought that on my way to church. "Man, should I really show up at church in my shorts? This could be weird." But there was something that just felt so right about it that I couldn't even talk myself into being worried.
I would NEVER have worn shorts to my old church. Go read this post to find out how God moved me from a boring traditional church to this incredible church we go to now.
I'm singing along in worship because Brenton is working and my kids are with Grammy, so I'm just singing my little heart out by myself and loving it. Then God starts reminding me about my jean shorts.
"Remember how you HAD to wear them?"
"Yeeees," I replied hesitantly. Where is he going with this?
"That's because it's symbolic of putting on armor, preparing for a battle that is coming but isn't here yet."
Me: "Oh, cool! That's really neat God."
"And it's a battle for the youth. This summer."
"Super cool! I'm so excited!"
"And you need to tell that to the church right now."
"Wait, what?"
So that's it. He doesn't push me anymore, but I really want to do it even though it terrifies me. The worship continues for a bit and I scrounge up the courage to go sit beside the pastor and his wife up front and tell them about it.
Worship continues for a while so I think maybe I won't do the talking and they will pass on the message from God. Then, all of a sudden I'm being handed the mic. It still makes me laugh now that my church is crazy enough to be handing me the mic because I told them God was speaking to me about my jean shorts. But they are just that awesome.
So, I get up and tell everyone what happened. How I HAD to find my shorts and how God said it was because we need to get ready for a battle by putting on the armor of God and the battle is going to be for the youth. The youth pastor usually is at the back, but he just happened to be sitting up front that Sunday because he was doing the intros and announcements.
I told them that I felt like we needed to pray for the youth pastor, Scott.
The head pastor walks over to me and says, "Great. You're going to speak over him and talk to him like a general who needs to get ready for battle."
"Wait, what?"
What I had really meant was for someone else come do the praying part. I had said my piece and I didn't think there was any left. My mind went blank. I was like, okay God, what now? But the Holy Spirit leads our pastor to go get another lady in our church that he said needed this too because she is in charge of the children's ministry. Chantal I know God has big plans for you.
While he was going to get her from the back of the room, I remembered something I thought about when I was waiting during the worship, just before I got handed the mic.
Pastor Dana brings Chantal up to sit beside Scott, the youth pastor, I said that God had told me to tell them about how different we will look. Doing something that no one else was doing was going to look strange. Like me, dressed for a season that wasn't here yet. Preparing for a battle that's not here yet.
I spoke that over them and I also remembered that while I had been waiting to get up, God had told me to remind them about the belt of truth and also, secondary to that, the helmet of salvation. Both of those are parts of the spiritual armor that the Bible talks about. I talked about those for a minute and then the pastor prayed over them. Crystal and Scott had tears, it was really powerful stuff for all of us. Scott tells me he needs to talk with me after.
The service goes on and I go to find Scott after everything wraps up, which sometimes takes a while for us at our church. Pastor Dana has about the three stages of "the end" of his sermons. First is wrap up, then comes a mini-sermon about the sermon, then comes the final stage - the wind down. The more wound up he gets in his sermon, the longer this stage takes. You have to know we love you Pastor Dana!
So I walk up to Scott and he pulls up a chair beside him and pats it for me to sit down. He tells me that what I said was bang on. He has a regular job as well as being the youth pastor and he was about to confront his boss on Monday morning about a problem co-worker who had been creating havoc for everyone else but was lying to the bosses about it and getting away with their trouble-making.
Can you see the belt of truth in that situation? Because I sure as hell can. Yes, Christians can use the word hell. It's okay, relax.
Scott goes on to tell me about a dream he has for an old building in town, to renovate it into a youth centre. In Canada we spell it centre, don't ask me why. I don't know.
Anyway, he has this dream and funding is coming into place from local businesses that see and believe in his vision. He has the building picked out, the town is backing him on this idea and it's a go ahead but as of today (March 31st, 2019) what he really needs is someone to help out on the administration end, specifically writing out letters and proposals for the non-profit organization to get the funding.
He has structured the non-profit with a board and they are going to get funding for two paid positions. One will be a salary for him so that he can focus on the youth ministry full-time, and the other will be the administrator.
He says to me, so would you like to be on the board and have the paid job of writing and take care of admin stuff?
I had one answer.
I was made for this.
Three last little things are neat.
1) Scott always wears shorts but he didn't that day and God told me I would stand out because NO ONE else was wearing shorts.
2) Chantal stopped by while we were talking and said that as soon as she walked in the front door and saw me wearing shorts, she knew she was in for it. Like, watch out, Heather going to knock some magic in my soul today and it might hurt a little. Which is hilarious because I saw the look on her face when she came in and I wondered if I had done something!
3) I had been driving through Oyen a few days ago and I noticed they still hadn't fixed the two gigantic pot holes on main street and I thought: Man! That town board should have had these holes fixed by now. If I was on that board I would totally help get things done. That would be fun to be on a board. Funny how God reads your thoughts eh?
(Okay four things) 4) Scott didn't say to me, would you like to send me your resume? He didn't say, let's think about it. Because of what God did, through me wearing shorts, he knew I was the person for the job. Boom. Done. End of story. (Okay five) 5) I was exactly where I should be, was supposed to be today. The right time at the right place and God just did it all.
(Months later - I must add number 6: It turns out that Chantal is now doing major renovations to the children's ministry rooms and I remember that when God told me to speak, he gave me the exact words "You're going to look different." and I had no idea about any possible renovations when I said that. Yeah, they are going to look different!!!)
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