Steady On

God had seemed pretty distant the past few weeks-not really tangible. Let me tell you, that is torture in a culture like Bethel.  It’s all about encounter with them.  This is an awesome, amazing thing when you are encountering, but when you aren’t, worshipping and even just being around people makes you feel like crap-stuck in a pit while every one else is having a party above you. Welcome to my Sunday morning.  It was such a joyous time, the morning of graduation for three of my roommates.  We were taking them out to celebratory lunch after the early service and they were graduating that night! No time for being in a pit.  They deserved for me to be in the best of moods for them. I just wasn’t.

Danny Silk, a pastor at Bethel, got up during the service and started talking about the geese (he called them honkers) that happened to be in front of the convention center when he arrived that morning.  He talked about how the honkers fly in their V formation with a leader always at the front.  When that leader tires it drops back, and one steps up to take its place.  And as they are flying, they are honking-and they do this to encourage the one in the lead to keep going.  He saw this (and the fact that geese were welcoming us to church that day) as a beautiful prophetic picture of how we are supposed to interact as brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are to cheer each other on as we step out in the front to go farther.  And we are to know when we are tired and let someone else take the reigns.  It’s a constant musical chairs of encouragement that makes us go farther together.  Bethel also loves to do wacky prophetic acts, so he asked us to put our hands on the people beside us and honk.  Yes, honk.  We also declared encouragement over them and asked God to help them go farther and deeper.  I suppose it was a pretty powerful thing for many people, but I was still down in my pit and just kind of going through the motions.  The depth of what it meant didn’t hit me until later.

After church, we made it to the restaurant and were eating and chatting, but I was mostly quiet. I felt as if I started talking I would began crying.  I was confused and frustrated at why this was and hated that it was hindering what should be a fun day.  Finally, one of my roommates asked me what was wrong and if I needed to talk. I didn’t, because I didn’t want to turn this into a counsel Jessica session during their celebratory lunch.  Kristy said, “It won’t ruin our day to talk to you about what is going on with you. Actually, it will probably make our day better.”  And as I shared how I had been feeling all week (and apologizing if any of my episodes affected other people) my roommates began to speak life to me, to shed some light on what they saw happening, to tell me how they saw God using me in their lives and how that was important.  As we sat in the booth talking long after we finished eating, it clicked what Danny was saying that morning.  I was surrounded by my fellow honkers and they were encouraging me to go further, to not stay stuck in the same pattern I found myself in.  Because I voiced what was going on inside my head and allowed others to speak into it, I allowed a stronghold to be exposed and broken off because truth was inserted into it.  And that is community. That is what we are supposed to be for one another.  That is why we really will go farther together than we would alone.

I am encouraged today (and hope you are too) to be that voice, that honk of encouragement in someone else’s life.  And if you are the tired one who needs encouragement, let others know and allow them to speak into you.  We all need it.  We need to be told we can go farther.

This whole illustration reminded me of a song from an old favorite band of mine, Storyhill.  They are a folk duo that sing a lot about fun things like mountains and rivers and campfires. It’s a message of encouragement to go farther in your dreams and ties it all back into geese and how they fly.  It’s also the only other time I have heard the word honker, so I thought of it immediately when Danny was talking.  Enjoy.  And steady on.