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Hi Pastor John,
Here it is... The turtle story.
I can't believe that it has been 6 weeks since your Spiritual Formation class began. As I read through Psalm 23 on the first night the first thing I was faced with was "Do I really trust God?" In every single verse -- Do I trust that he is my shepherd? Do I trust that I can hear him? Do I trust that He will provide for me? After 6 weeks I'm still in Psalm 23 and I'm still praying about trust issues.
It almost seems like I never really trusted God before this experience. But there was one event that occurred during the first week that has really made a big difference in my life.
Most of my prayer time is spent in an unused lobby in the first floor of the building where I work. On one particular day during the first week I was confronted with the question "Do you trust that I am always listening?" I was forced to admit that no, I really don't trust God that way. I trust him for the big, important things. But not with little things that don't matter to anybody but me. Not like someone I can talk to at the end of a bad day at work. I prayed for God to change that. And I felt like He asked me to take a "trust fall." "Ask the dumbest, most useless question you can think of. Something that you think I wouldn't answer. Something that you don't think you could even recognize an answer if I did. I'll answer."
The first thing I thought of was the collection of toy turtles I have on my desk at work. I purchased the first one years ago, and people have slowly added to that collection. I have about a dozen now. So I wrote in my journal - "God, which of the turtles in my office do you like the best?" That was the end of my prayer time for that day -- the alarm on my cell phone went off and I got up to leave.
When I turned around, the first thing I saw was the sign on the office across from the lobby I've been using. I never noticed it before. I had to take a picture because I thought nobody would believe me (sign.jpg). It says "TURTLEROCK GREENTECH."
I have exactly one turtle on my desk that is made of rock (turtle.jpg). It just happens to be green. It is the only one that really works as a paperweight, so it is usually sitting on a pad of graph paper or a stack of note cards. Turtle. Rock. Green. Tech... A specific answer to a ridiculous prayer less than 5 minutes after the prayer was written down. All coincidence? I guess you could make that argument. But that also has to take into account how I accidentally started collecting these turtles over 10 years ago, how I ended up at this company, how it ended up in this building, how I ended up in this lobby...
And while the answer to this little prayer may not seem very meaningful, it raised the level of trust in my heart. Since that experience there are things that I have been able to pray about that I always considered off limits before. I've been able to ask why certain people were not and have not been healed. I've been able to ask about some things in my past that I've never been able to get over, and for at least one of those God revealed exactly why I was still carrying around that hurt and how to let it go. I've even been able to trust God enough to pray for someone in public. Six weeks ago I think I would have rather died than say to a stranger "Can I share something that I think God just told me to share with you?"
Not all my questions have been answered. But now I trust that God is listening. And answering.
-- matt
