Sneak Peek: Life Journey
Ready For My Destiny
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows
OUR DESTINY is usually revealed to us when we are deep in the valley of the shadow of death surrounded by our enemies. During this time, we often turn the corner into what may become the most fruitful season of our life journey.
Dear Kelly,
One of the greatest moments in your mom’s life was when you gave birth to our first grandson, Alexander Josiah William Brown on August 16, 1998. Because it was on a Sunday morning I had to be at church, but I can still feel the emotion that I experienced as I drove to the hospital after the service to meet your son for the first time. What a wonderful gift to our family he is!
Your sister Kristy was not to be beat though! At eight o’clock the following Sunday morning, she gave birth to Jacob MacKenzie Low. It was almost too much blessing for your mom and me to endure. I was ready to burst with pride as I announced at each of our morning services on August 23, “We did it again!” The church clapped and cheered for both of you.
In early December, when the boys were just over three months old, we celebrated their dedication at a Sunday morning service. There’s no way that I can adequately describe to you, Honey what it’s like to be both your dad and your pastor. As I held our two perfect grandsons on the platform of the church, I prayed a prayer of dedication over them and over you four parents. I felt a sense of joy, thankfulness, privilege and pride. I was holding in my arms the fruit of your mom’s and my love and labour. A new generation was budding on our family tree.
Twenty-six years before, we had dedicated you to the Lord’s care and protection at the church where I grew up and where I had been dedicated. There is no greater joy for a parent than seeing the circle of life turning successfully. I am so very thankful to my shepherd for leading our family down the right path.
As I’ve held Alexander, and now your son Maxwell, over these past few months, I have often wondered what future destiny has been prepared for them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed over them that they will be protected and make wise choices as they mature. It is with your and your son’s life journeys in mind that I write this letter to you. This subject of our destiny is the climax of David’s psalm. Everything else that he has written leads to this point in our lives; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Let me begin with a couple of stories.
A boy named Phineas Taylor
PAUL AURANDT WRITES in More of Paul Harvey’s – the Rest of the Story, that back in the early eighteen hundreds there was a boy named Phineas Taylor. When Phineas was christened as a baby, his grandfather presented him with a deed to a sizable piece of property. He referred to it as Ivy Island. The deed changed Phineas’ life. After that day he was always referred to with a little awe, because even as a boy he was a land owner. He continued to play with his friends, just as if he was a common poor boy like the others, but his dreams were of his inheritance. One day he would be the lord of Ivy Island.
When Phineas was 10, because of his incessant pleadings, his father agreed to take him to see the island which his grandfather had described as the most valuable farm in all Connecticut. He could hardly wait to see his fortune. Finally, Phineas, his father and a hired hand arrived and the young boy ran with vigour over the last hill to his island for the first time. He could hardly believe what his eyes fell on. It was five acres of barren, snake infested, worthless swampland. There were a few struggling trees with ivy vines clinging for their lives. It was a swamp and nothing more.
As Phineas stood staring at his land while his dream of future fortune lay shattered before him, his father and the hired hand roared with laughter. The gift of Ivy Island was the most protracted practical joke that old grandpa had ever played on anyone. That on devastating day in Phineas Taylor’s life shaped the rest of his life journey forever. Because he had been made a fool of, he decided at that moment to become the biggest con-artist the world had ever known. He was deceived by his own grandfather and was therefore inspired to make a life long career of deception. The man, who boldly declared, “There is a sucker born every minute,” spent his life proving it.
As a boy I grew up in awe of clowns, acrobats, lion tamers and magicians in the circuses I saw. The man who made it all happen was Phineas Taylor … P.T of Barnum and Barnum and Bailey circus fame. At the lowest point of Phineas’ life, in his greatest humiliation, his destiny as a sideshow con-artist and ultimately a circus entertainer was unveiled. Like David, the waiting period between the revelation and the ultimate fulfillment covered many years.
An owl, a boy and his destiny
THE SECOND STORY, which also took place in a boy's very formative years, is about Walter Elias. When Walter, a city boy, was not quite five, his parents moved from Chicago to a farm in Missouri. At seven years of age, when Walter was out in the apple orchard exploring one day, he saw the most amazing sight he had ever seen. It was a real owl, apparently asleep, perched on an apple tree. His father had taught him that owls sleep in the day and hunt at night. In a brave but boyish moment Walter decided to catch the owl and make it his pet. He cautiously crept up to the bird so that he wouldn't awaken it; then he suddenly reached up and grabbed it by its legs. Of course the owl awoke with a start and began to fight for his freedom. Walter was frightened so badly that he didn't know what to do and without a thought, he flung it to the ground and stomped it to death. Realizing what had happened as he stared down at the pile of feathers and blood, Walter cried and ran home. Later he returned and buried the owl and gave it a proper funeral, but for months he couldn't sleep. Walter never killed a living creature again. Instead that year, as if to make peace with the past, he began to give life to animals by drawing them and allowing them to run free. The boy is now gone, but his animals still bring laughter and awe to millions. His full name was Walter Elias Disney and he received the first anointing for his destiny at seven years of age in the midst of tragedy.
Our cups run over
THE PSALM READS, you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. While the oil represents the sufficiency and authority that the shepherd gives us to move forward in the gifting which he has given us, the cup symbolized the realm of our experiences and the circumstances into which we have been sovereignly placed. These are situations that life hands to us. They may produce either negative or positive reactions, but they are challenges given to us which we must face. We don’t have any control over many of our life circumstances such as if we are born with no right hand; parents give us up for adoption; an uncle sexually abuses us; a drunk driver strikes our car; our home is struck by a tornado. On and on the list could go of challenges that life seemingly whimsically hands us. Our only choices are the attitudes which we receive them.
Remember Jesus, before he died on the cross prayed, “My father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” The cup that Jesus was handed by the shepherd was bitter opposition and ultimately execution on the cross. He didn’t want to die such a violent death any more than you or I would, but he willingly accepted the cup, symbolically drank it and changed the world as a result. Two billion people today claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. No person in history has affected humanity so profoundly.
The cup then, is the realm of circumstances into which we are sovereignly placed or that we experience as a consequence of our own choices; and the oil is the shepherd’s empowerment to move fully in the destiny he has purposed for us. The circumstances are designed by the shepherd to help prepare us for the destiny ahead.
