dream womb

God’s servants must be taught the value of the hidden life. The man who is to take a high place before his fellows must take a low place before his God. We must not be surprised if sometimes our Father says: "There child, thou hast had enough of this hurry, and publicity, and excitement; get thee hence, and hide thyself by the brook – hide thyself in the Cherith of the sick chamber, or in the Cherith of bereavement, or in some solitude from which the crowds have ebbed away."
Elijah - by Meyer

The above from today’s Streams in the Desert reminds me of Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias. Matthew says that when the angel’s words came true, when she finally got pregnant, she didn’t race around to all the neighbors spreading her good news. Instead "She hid herself five months...." Matthew 1:24.

Sometimes I think I’d be well advised to do the same thing about the things God is telling me, the dreams He is conceiving in my heart, the assignments I sense He is giving me.

The tendency is to go around at the first hint of such a thing pompously announcing God has told me to do this and is sending me there. Why do I need to do this? Perhaps it is to make me seem big and important in the eyes of people – Oh my, she has an assignment from God. Or because I value the opinion and crave the validation of people as much or more than that of God?

The place of gestation, on the other hand, is a place of hiddeness, obscurity, sometimes uncertainty and certainly silence – on my part at least. If I am discreet in talking about my dream, I give God space to flesh it out and change it. And I avoid the trap of having to appear consistent to people I’ve blabbed it to when it was just an embryo and before God had the chance to grow it big and prove it viable.

(Photo is the 'womb' of the magnolia tree)