Shake Out the Crickets

The house I grew up in had a cricket problem. I don't know how many times I got a cricket stuck between my toes when I inserted my foot into a shoe before I finally learned: Empty your shoes first. Apparently, crickets liked the closed-in nest of a somewhat smelly shoe. After I'd finally learned my lesson, my morning routine became: Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, throw my shoes against the wall, and after the cricket hops out, put on my shoes, brush teeth, go to school.

We didn't know where the critters were coming in from, but they made themselves very present. When my parents finally made the step to put vinyl siding around the house... the crickets mysteriously disappeared. When that happened, we realized: Whatever crack there was in the house's walls or foundation was taken care of, sheathed in a new armor that could keep the pestilence at bay.

How difficult it is to fully eradicate ungodly things from our lives! The pestilence can be tiny, but it is almost always persistent, and you may not even know where or how it creeps into your life. How important it is to wrap ourselves in the shield and protection of the Holy Spirit, to ask for His shield to surround us, to keep out the things that are not from Him.

I named my blog The Leaky Vessel with the idea that, like the description in 2 Corinthians 4:7, this jar of clay, this faulty, breakable, warped vessel will be filled up with the Holy Spirit. In any faulty, cracked vessel, you run the risk of filth creeping in - through holes, through weakened spots...

But from the reverse perspective, if you fill the leaky vessel with treasure, it can seep out through those fissures and leaks and cracks, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from me. If I were a perfect vessel with no cracks - but absolutely empty - there would be nothing to point to God.

Through my very imperfections, God is glorified, because He has filled me up and made me whole, transformed me and strengthened me, kept the pestilence at bay, sheathed me in His armor.

I pray that the Lord will shake His vessels, shake us up so much, that the all-surpassing power stored inside each one of us spills out, overflows to everyone around. 

Shaking has been a theme in my prayers for the last few months; I've sensed a strong call to pray for a shaking of the church, for its refinement, so that we can become even more firmly rooted - strengthened by the Rock. 

Hebrews 12:25-29 says: "See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven? At that time, His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.' The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for 'our God is a consuming fire.'"

Once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. That day is coming and may be close at hand when we hear His voice and see His face with our physical ears and eyes. Can you just imagine the shaking that will take place when the King of kings comes in His glory? How wonderful for those who have longed for His appearing! 

But these verses aren't fluffy. They aren't skippety-doo-dah. They speak of the end, and if we aren't ready, they speak of judgment. I've said it before, and I'll say it again here: Get ready. Whatever you need to do to make yourself right with the Ancient of Days, do it. It's not worth the costly hesitation.

Habakkuk 1:5: "Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told."

And then in 3:2: "Lord, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of Your deeds, oh Lord. Renew them in our day! In our time make them known! In wrath... remember mercy."

What a picture of God! Both King and Shepherd, both Judge and Mediator, both Lion and Lamb. I wish I could better wrap my mind around the greatness of God, but I know that while I'm in this physical, earthly, sin-ridden body, I'll never be able to fully grasp Him. Someday, I'll stand in the great expanse of heaven before the crystal throne and the sea of glass, and with "tens of thousands and thousands and thousands" of angels and all the saints of God from the beginning of time to the end of it...

I'll praise His name forever! Hallelujah! "Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" (Revelation 7:12)