Finding my voice

P: Lord, what woul you like to say to me this morning?

L: Go with the flow.

P: What does that mean?

L: Flow with me, Patrick. What is flow?

P: Motion, I guess. Like a river, but never ceasing. So, you want me to get carried away by the flow? I still don’t understand what that looks like.

L: You are holding on to something, so that you can feel some sort of safety, and keep yourself under control. Patrick, do you know that most people that die in a river drown while they are holding on to a log or something while the current continually pushes on them? Let go and let the current take you.

P: Well, what am I holding on to, and what is the current? I need some concrete understanding for these images.

L: You are holding on to your idea of what your life should look like. I am telling you to let go. Would you rather have a life that comes from your own design or my design? I understand you feel like you have become nothing in your life. That is not how I see you. I see you as someone great, someone who loves me, and about whom I am absolutely crazy. What s more true, what I see, or what you see?

P: I understand, Lord. But in the meantime, I am here trying to pay bills, trying to be a good husband and managing my house well, and I am failing. What do you say about that?

L: That you are not thinking creatively. I fed the 5000 with a few loaves and fish. I paid for our taxes with money from our morning catch.

P: Lord, how does that help me? Sure, I know in theory we are to do these things. But I have never seen it done, even by greater men in faith than myself. How can I expect to see these things? Besides, is not the thing I am holding on to much more selfish than feeding the hungry? I am worried about paying my own bills, and I am in debt for overspending in the past. How does all that help me?

L: Patrick, you can rely on yourself, or you can let go. Go with the flow and find out what is in store for you down the river. I tell you that my heart for you is good. How then can you be worried about what is to come?

P: Because what is has always been a mess, and if it isnt a mess, I seem to mess it up somehow. I want to let go and I want to trust You, but I do not know how to trust you and let go and let You take me down the river, because I am unclear on whether that means that I need to take my hands off my own life, or whether I need to listen and do only what you tell me, or whether I am missing the entire point.

L: Patrick, I have given you instructions for now. You have not done it. Write. Write anything. You will find your voice. I am with you, and I will show you many things. But you need to do it. Is it not coincidental that your inheritance in the house was a typewriter? This is a writing season for you, so write! Trust me to make the other connections for you. I asked you to trust me with your finances, and I will keep my word. If I can feed so many with a few loaves, what do you think I can do with your words? But you need to be faithful to write. These are my instructions: WRITE! You have more to say than you think.

P: OK, fine. How am I supposed to get started writing and what am I supposed to write?

L: Anything, any way it comes. You will find your voice, but you need to explore the options.