For weeks now, I have been thinking about an old friend of mine who had grown up Buddhist. I had shared Jesus with Him, and it actually brought him great confusion as he saw Jesus undeniably at work in my life yet, had grown up with certain family and cultural traditions and a religion that was just comfortable for him.
One day after a long conversation about the transformation of Christ in a born-again believer’s life, my friend felt God’s Presence but was still unsure of what to do with his Buddha. He went away to a small Buddhist temple to get his head straight because he felt as if he was betraying his family and his beliefs by accepting Jesus as his Lord.
I remember him telling me about how he walked into a small, empty temple just outside of Sydney and he laid out on his face in front of the Buddha statue, crying out in frustration. He remembers saying the very words, “Jesus, if YOU are real and Buddha is not, then you’re going to have to prove it to me!”
I still remember the look on his face as he recounted his story of how, that the very moment he spoke those words aloud, a giant city bus went screaming past the small temple and shook the building to its core.
Within a second, the shaking was so great it caused the Buddha statue to fall and decapitate itself on the floor just in front of where he was laying. Needless to say, my friend gave his everything to Jesus that day and I had the privilege of helping to disciple him for sometime after that.
This story has been playing in my head over and over, and I feel like the Lord reminded me of this glorious testimony as an invitation to embrace the SHAKING that is taking place right now.
As daunting as the shaking can be, it’s actually not to “punish” us but to bring us back to what is best so that we can absolutely shine for His glory.
When a child does something wrong, a father doesn’t shake him, but lovingly corrects and realigns the child’s thinking back to what is best. This shaking is a realignment to what is BEST, and it is an invitation to expose and demolish any idols that may be present. It is also a way for Jesus to show up, show off and make Himself known.
Personally, I have been experiencing shaking for a few months now, and although it’s uncomfortable and emotional, I can feel the Father’s heart for me in the process.
Isaiah 54 speaks of stretching and enlarging the tent; and we know that every time we stretch the tent out further, we have to actually unpeg the tent in order to stretch and repeg it into stability.
Unpegging can be shaky, but it just means the stretch is going to be so much wider and cover so much more territory.
If you are experiencing a shaking right now, don’t fret or fear. Accept the invitation into greater levels of intimacy with Jesus, and allow Him to cause the things that are not for your BEST to fall off of you.
He is a safe place (Proverbs 18:10; Psalm 27:1; Psalm 91; Psalm 32:7), and in that safe place you can allow everything that has tried to put itself higher than Jesus to fall into pieces.
Go deeper with Him when you feel the shake and let Him love on you until you feel the freedom.
Hebrews 12:27 (TPT): Now this phrase “once and for all” clearly indicates the final removal of things that are shaking, that is, the old order, so only what is unshakeable will remain.
~ Mandy Woodhouse
Restored People Community 