BY DAWN REED
By the time you read this, my beloved and I will be back in the Lower 48 or maybe even our treasured Bluegrass. We have been in Tok, Alaska for two weeks on a mission/vision trip.
As we prepped for our trip, I asked the Lord to speak to me along the way. Boy, He did. It started at security in the airport.
Some answers to prayer seem to take forever. Weeks, months, even years pass as we seek Him and wait for His response or direction. Like a cake baking in the oven, He is working in the waiting for the right time. However, nothing moves Him into lightning speed so much as the dangerous prayer of “search me” that David spoke of in Psalm 139:23.
Security is important at any airport. And I want all y’all to go through it. I would personally rather skip it and wait for you on the other side. It makes me nervous, fearful that I have accidentally packed something sinister and will be dragged off to a scary place in the basement of the airport never to be seen again. Dramatic, I know. Years ago, I was caught with VBS scissors in my backpack in Paris. The angry security employee immediately took them from my possession.
At airport security, we are stripped of all possessions, scanned, and sometimes patted down. (I used to carry a copy of my hip replacement X-ray in case I set off a metal detector.)
This time, I stepped into a huge machine, lifted my hands above my head, and something was blown all over me. Not sure what that was.
I was elated when I was ushered through without complications.
As we lined up to be examined, I thought of Psalm 139:23, written by David: “Search me, God, and know my heart…” The rest of it is: “…test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”
There are countless Bible verses I love, post, and memorize. They encourage me and spur me on. This is NOT one of them. Psalm 139:23 is like a spiritual colonoscopy. When I pray it, my sweet Heavenly Father jumps right in to scan my innermost parts for unacceptable thoughts, feelings, worries, and behaviors. It is not fun.
Reading a devotion by Craig Groeschel before our trip, he encouraged the dangerous prayer of “search me,” and then “break me.” Shew, Craig, I would rather not.
But as a follower of Christ, is that not what I am supposed to courageously and dangerously pray each day? To take out the ungodly parts of me and fill every part with the Holy Spirit as Paul wrote in Colossians 3. As a follower of Christ, I want to be an example for Him in good times and bad. I need to be changed to be like Him.
Evaluations at the airport AND spiritually are important. Crucial for all of our well-being.
Finally through security, with personal items collected, my beloved took my hand. We were ready to begin our adventure, headed to Mukluk Land in Tok, AK. When we follow God, oh, the places we will go.
Dawn Reed is a newspaper columnist and pastor’s wife in Prestonsburg.