“I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guard post. There I will wait to see what the LORD says and how he will answer my complaint.” – Habakkuk 2:1 NLT
Every one of us need a watchtower. You need a place to go where you can get out of your routine. It doesn’t need to be far away. It might be as close as your closet. And surely it ought not to be a place that will set you back financially. But it needs to be someplace where you get good reception– “Holy Spirit reception.” Generally, we find our “place” outside of our normal work environment. Somehow, we have to get outside our routines, outside our assumptions, outside our biases.
Where do you go to hear God’s voice more clearly?
Where do you go to get perspective?
What places are you freer to imagine?
Do you have a private place to pray where you simply seem to connect with God in greater intimacy?
Do you have a particular private place to lament?
Thomas Edison sat in his thinking chair with a metal ball bearing in each palm. Henry David Thoreau skipped stones on Walden Pond. Alexander Graham Bell had a dreaming place in the hollow of tree overlooking the Grand River. George Washington Carver routinely got up at 4:00 a.m. and walked through the woods and asked God to reveal the mysteries of nature.
Where do you get your perspective? With the morass of voices and clamor regarding just about every topic facing our turbulent culture, where do you find and discover God’s perspective?
The Psalmist was perplexed with the overwhelming success of the wicked. So where did he turn to find perspective?
“16 So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper. But what a difficult task it is! 17 Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked.” – Psalm 73:16-17 NLT
Geography affects Spirituality.
Places are important to God:
“11 you must read this Book of Instruction to all the people of Israel when they assemble before the LORD your God at the place he chooses.” – Deuteronomy 31:11 NLT
The place where the High Priest would sacrifice once a year for the sins of the people:
“3 Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies,” – Hebrews 9:3 NASB95
Daniel’s room was his place of prayer:
“10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.” – Daniel 6:10 ESV
We will live in a place in Christ’s presence:
“2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” – John 14:2 ESV
The battle of the great day of God Almighty:
“16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” – Revelation 16:16 KJV
I guess places are significant to God ☺!
Many times, Epiphanies (moments of insight or revelation) are reveled in specific places.
Sometimes we think of epiphanies as once in a life-time experiences. I suggest they can be more normal, or more frequent, as we find our way to the “places” of God’s choosing. He is speaking to us far more than we are listening to Him. Oh Lord, help me listen as much as I talk ☹☺!
Some of my places where spiritual epiphanies occur:
In my home:
While reading a book which generally spawns an insight found in the Bible.
While reading the Bible the Holy Spirit has given me transforming ideas and has instructed me to take righteous steps of obedience.
While in bed preceding going to sleep, often in the middle of the night aroused with a thought or a dream, and when I immediately wake up.
Outside my home:
While walking on the beach or in the forest as I converse with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
While driving in the car, usually when listening to a speaker or a song or simply diving in silence.
My spiritual epiphanies are in direct proportion to my walk of obedience to Christ (Isaiah 59:2) and reading or studying the Word God (Psalm 119:11).
I will not bore you with all my substantive revelations, but here are eight to give you an idea of what an epiphany means to me, and I trust will be instructional for you as well. These revelations have not been simply mind-penetrating, but they have been redemptive behavioral transformations for me, as well as to the people who have responded to these powerful revelations.
• While in a coffee shop in Sunriver reading the Henry Morris Study Bible the confirmation of the accuracy of the literal creation account. (Exodus 20:11)
• While on the banks of the Deschutes River reading The God Who is There, by Francis Shaeffer. The solidification that Biblical Truth can and must be defended. (Jude 3)
• While reading, “The Forgotten Ways” by Alan Hirsch, that the Truth of the “Shema” (Hear Oh, Israel, Deuteronomy 6:4) is an apologetic (a reasoned answer) that defends the Truth that there is only One True God who stands in contrast to other competing gods, or false gods, of Moses’ day and of our day.
• While driving back from California, the Holy Spirit spoke to me as I drove by the Lake Oswego exit, “You will start a Church and it will be right here in Lake Oswego.” (Galatians 5:25)
• While teaching a series on wholeness, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that personal healing can and ought to take place in our total person—our spirits, our souls, and our bodies when we repent and sincerely walk in humility. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
• When observing that our culture was accelerating in its move away from a Biblical Worldview, the Lord God gave me a massive paradigm shift. That shift was my understanding that the Bible addresses every arena of life (all society) not just our personal walks with Him. (Deuteronomy 4:5-8; 1 Timothy 3:16)
• The “Law” is not a restrictive, legalistic, punitive, unloving, or a condemnatory code. This myopic view of the OT has been reiterated many times by bible teachers. The “Law” is God’s instruction manual for how to live righteously as individuals and as a society. It is God’s orientation course in His will and ways. May we delight in it as the writers of the Bible did. (Psalm 119:20-21; 1 John 5:3)
• While studying “The Founders’ Bible,” the illuminating realization that the “Law” consists of four types of law: the Ceremonial law, the Moral Law, the Judicial Law, and the Social Compact Law. This epiphany was simply positively staggering for me as it has opened up my understanding of God’s intentions in all facets of life for our society as well as our personal obedience. (Look to Isaiah 2:3) Using this revelation, the Spirit of Christ has propelled me to pursue holiness, explain righteousness, deeply investigate the Torah and apply the many laws that address the challenges we are facing as a nation in our schools, financial institutions, and law enforcement agencies. In addition, the insights and directives from the Law with regard to individualism and collectivism and how we are to care for the poor have been absolutely staggering.
If you want to think new thoughts, then read new things, meet new people, and go new places. Learning something about something new forces your mind out of its natural routines and tendencies. Meeting new people challenges your subconscious biases, and going to new places makes your mind observe what is typically ignored.
The title of this article is true:
Change of Pace + Change of Place = Change of Perspective
What will you do with what you have read?
Here are a few suggested actions:
#1 Most of you have excellent routines and places where you meet the Lord. Write down your places and share them with others that you associate with.
#2 Review and write down some of your epiphanies and how they have altered and/or benefited your life, and have built up the reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
#3 Ask others to share their places and epiphanies.
#4 How would you rate the frequency that you are seeking to hear from the Holy Spirit in the place of your choosing, or where the Lord chooses?
Indicate by circling a number on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 being exceptional.
1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10
I can say with certainty that the reality of the two verses below will be evident in your life when you seek God in the place of His choosing!
17 “…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,…” – Ephesians 1:17-18 ESV
I am writing today from a “place” of His choosing (dog sitting☺) overlooking Elliott Bay in Seattle Washington.☺
In Christ,
Dale