Now imagine if you will the chaos that ensued due to the disciples waking to what must have been madness. Peter without thought for his own life grabs the sword of a guard and like a scene straight out of the likes of The Gladiator he cuts the ear off of a guard and ready’s himself for one final showdown…I think about this scene and run it through my minds eye over and over wondering if that’s exactly what I would have done. I’d like to think so anyway. Now I’m no Peter, NOT BY A LONGSHOT! But, if I were to be any one of those great men, I would like to think I was most like Peter. Of course being the man in whom Christ says “Upon this rock I will build my church” don’t hurt either…lol. Now fast forward all those years to 2010. Ok so you have this fireball in Peter and with all that passion and drive, and fierce dedication slap him in the middle of Georgia in a small town called GRIFFIN in a midsized church called Eagles Way. Can you see kind of where I’m going with this?
My time at Edub (that’s street for Eagles Way) has been tumultuous at times. My emotions I think have run the gambit more now than ever before. Well at least spiritually that is. Up, down, side to side. OH MY!…But I believe we are in such a great time. A renewing is taking place. A shaking is occurring. And while I think I saw this sometime ago, and was like what the heck are y’all doing?! His timing is EVERYTHING. I said “HIS” timing, not mine. So I have to learn patience and persistence, and I hear the Holy Spirit saying “CHILL OUT!” from time to time. So I sit and I vent when I need to (my wife can tell you about that). And I wait, and wait, and wait. I thought so many times I just want to scream, but of course didn’t. Well maybe just a little. I wanted to just shake a few people, and say WAKE UP! But that wasn’t what was needed from me you know? And besides I think the Father was trying to show me something. Doesn’t he always want to show us something? The past is the past someone said to me once. Don’t try to recreate something great from there in your present place. You will only bring disaster upon yourself. You will set yourself up for failure as well. You are where you are for something different. You’re going through what you’re going through to learn or to partake in something DIFFERENT. See the pattern forming here? All the while I’m preaching to myself, believe you me. And typing the words ain’t making this any easier for me to swallow then it has been living the lesson. I think it just becomes more like a catalyst for the lesson. The Israelites lived 40yrs in the desert. 40 YEARS! Some of them didn’t even get to see the Promised Land. The point is, your battle, your struggle, your fight is NEVER without MERIT. I’ll say it again, what you are going through, GOOD or BAD is NEVER w/o merit; because the GOOD is equally as important as the BAD. Take the lily for instance. It does not open until it is ready, until it has fully developed into the beauty that it was destined to share. “It’s taking forever” you say to God, but won’t you be so glad to see that beauty when the time is right? His timing is not ours, but all that he has to offer is so much better when the timing is right. I cannot imagine the Son of God saying to me “upon this rock I will build my church”. I can hardly stand under the pressures of being a husband and father most days you know.
Jason Torres
jaysin1@hotmail.com
