Could We Have Some Time Together?

I went bowling this week and God spoke to me in a bowling alley. Amazing! I learned something in bowling alley from a fellow pastor. He told me that every couple of weeks this bowling alley removed all of their bowling pins from rotation and put them on the shelf replacing them with another full set of bowling pins from storage.

I didn't believe him. It made no sense to me. It seemed logical to me that the pins are made to be knocked down, run into, mashed together, collected up and reset for the process to begin all over again. If the pin is not broken, why replace it? If it is scratched, throw some paint on it but as long as it can take the punishment, keep it in play.

What I did not know was my friend is a bi-vocational pastor and he works on the maintenance team for this bowling alley. He said this particular alley used wooden pins and wooden pins need rest. I laughed even harder as the level of non-sense he was talking about was becoming too much for me. Wooden pins are inanimate objects. They don't need rest, they aren't real.

He looked at me and said "Obviously you are not a bowler? Obviously?!!! He said all of the knocking around, the flipping over takes a hardship on the pins and they lose what every bowler looks for in a good bowling alley, "Action or Alive pins". They lose their ability to bounce around or be as alive as they should be which can make the difference between a Strike or a "ten pin still standing because the messenger didn't come to take it out"??

This bowling alley learned if you took the pins out of rotation and gave them some rest, they come back stronger than ever, alive and full of action. They need rest and it costs less to rest them then to keep buying new pins. I heard the Lord at that moment. The owner of the bowling alley, in order to preserve the life of the pins has scheduled rest for the pins so they could continue to take the abuse that they had to endure while on that particular lane.

I am not sure what lane you are on, you might be on the kiddie lane where everything is light, gentle and you barely get knocked over but you might be on the professional lane where the ball is coming at you from high speeds with hooks, curves and intent to remove everything in its way. GOD, your owner has programmed rest for you so you can take the abuse assigned to you on that lane.

Life has bowled us over, trials have knocked us down, situations have run through us, some days we are a battered mess lying on the sides of the gutter with no ability to pick ourselves up only to be collected by the machine of life that won't stop. Life repositions us for the process just to begin over and over, again and again, time after time. Is there any relief from this? Does the ride ever stop and allow us to exit.

In order to "restore your soul", God has to "Make me lie down in green pastures". Even better than that, God programmed a day for you to rest once a week. A day to remind you of who HE is, what HE has for you and what HE wants to accomplish in your life. "Remember the Sabbath Day and Keep it Holy", is God"s personal invitation where HE says to all of us, "Could We Have Some Time Together"?

Funny where God speaks sometimes, but thank God HE does speak!!!


Owens