Knocked ‘Down’

What a great weekend!
I had an amazing time at Generation Unleashed with my church’s youth group! It was a spiritually refreshing and empowering time with God to say the least!
I am very tired though.
Today I preached part one of my message on Salvation and Christian Living. I used a lot of illustrations so that everyone in attendance could walk out of church this morning sure of what it means to be saved by Jesus. I was so tired that I wasn’t sure how it would go, but WOW- God revealed Himself in a mighty way to me and the people in attendance. It was incredible.
All day long people were telling me how wonderful of a preacher I was and how they wished the message was on video and not just audio. What a high!
Then this afternoon and this evening our church hosted a Free Community Superbowl Tailgate Party with food, drinks, game on the big screen, and prizes.
We had no clue how many people would show up, but we were very pleased with about 150 people from the community in attendance for us to make known that we were a real presence in the neighborhood and we could be trusted to teach them about Jesus when the Holy Spirit began to work on them. It was a success! It was amazing!
I didn’t get home until after 8:00pm and I was exhausted. And I hadn’t done my ‘run’ yet. I made myself get up and do it though. So after a very long weekend, and at 9:00pm at night…I was running.
And I actually felt great as I began to run! I listened to worship music and was lifting my hands in the air praising God as I ran down the dark street.
I was thanking God for how great the weekend was and for blessing and using me. I was feeling good about God…and feeling good about…me.
That’s when it hit. Out of nowhere, a long 2″x4″ strung across two 4″x4″s at a heighth of about 5′ 6″! A place that I run every other day and have never noticed this barrier before. I was right at the entrance to the sidewalk.
The road I run on does not have a sidewalk on either side for half of its distance, and what there is is very unkept and sporadic in its placing. And there is only one primitive bike lane on one side of the road. So in order to run safely I havee to run in the bike lane facing traffic.
Because the sidewalk is so dangerous and at places the bike lane is so wide, I almost always run in the bike Iane. It’s just safer.
For some reason tonight, though, I felt the strongest urge deep down within my spirit that I was supposed to get on the sidewalk. With all seriousness my feet kept going to the left when my mind was saying to stay to the right in the bike lane.
I felt as though I had to- that it was my destiny to move onto the sidewalk. And as I did, right where the sidewalk began I came face to face (literally) with the 2″x4″ suspended horizontally at a heighth of 5′ 6″- a 2″x4″ I had never really noticed before on a path that I run four times a week. A 2″x4″ that I might run eight times every single week and have apparently never noticed.
Was it something new?
Had it always been there?
Was a lifted to a higher elevation!
What on earth was its purpose?
Either way, I think it’s possible that it was devinely orchestrated for me to be ‘knocked down’ to the ground. I think God may have been letting me know not to get too big of a head. I think, after such a great weekend, God wanted to humble me and remind that there’s nothing special about me, it’s all about Him!
Or God could have been protecting me from a car hitting me instead. Who knows??
All I know is that I was knocked senseless in the face and I am hurting.
Lesson learned?
I hope so.