Blog: Glimmers in the Fog by Kim Stiver

The Last Glimmer... For Now

1/22/2020

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The last two and a half years have flown by, and while a part of me hoped that God would allow it to go on forever, I always knew He wanted me to hold Glimmers in the Fog with open hands, ready and willing to release it back to Him at any time. What began as simple, short musings gradually grew to become a collection of more than one hundred blog posts and podcasts, each including study questions and totaling more than 165,000 words. And they all started the same way as this one is now… A whisper, a nudge, or a flooding of a new thoughts from the Holy Spirit, along with a story to tell and a piping hot cup of morning coffee or afternoon tea. And that in and of itself is amazing to me — to know that He is constantly pushing us to grow… drawing us to Him… doing a new thing, yet He also consistently and steadily bubbles up into our lives through the simplicity of routines, dependable familiarity, and peaceful stirrings in our souls. The King of the Universe is both comfortingly familiar and strikingly fresh, all at the same time. He reveals Himself in the ordinary moments as much as the shocking events. He knows how to make us feel like His own every time.

Glimmers always murmured to me of its seasonality… its temporary sojourn for a substantial amount of my time, energy, and passion. What I didn’t expect, however, was its reason for coming to end (at least for now). As someone who sees and processes life through stories, I thought God was pushing me toward blogging, and eventually podcasting, as a way of building a new writing and teaching ministry to help others grow in their faith and intimacy with Jesus. And while He has indeed called me into full-time ministry, it’s not how I expected Him to do it. I’m just being super real with you right now, because at some point in the life of every Christ-follower — if not many times for some people — God will call you to something that doesn’t meet your expectations, but perfectly meets His. And when we find ourselves in those moments, we have two choices. We can embrace what He has planned and trust that everything up until this point has been for a purpose. Or, we can choose to resist His best for us by keeping our fists tightly clenched around the thing we love, the success we accumulate, the lifestyle we’re comfortable with, or the vision we have. You and I both know what will eventually happen either way, but sometimes we tell ourselves the truth we want to hear versus the only Truth that will lead to us to genuine fulfillment.

Waiting for a dream to become a reality — sometimes for years — is hard. Surrendering a dream back to God after you’ve had a little taste of it coming to fruition is even harder. But Jesus is an expert in using life’s twists, turns, and unmet expectations to achieve something much greater than we could’ve ever imagined and far more important than our own success, dreams, or accomplishments — even “spiritual” ones. What is Jesus trying to do in every single thing? He’s working to make us more like Him. Period. Everything else, even the most lofty spiritual service or altruistic dream you can think of, falls secondary to that. When we become more like Him, we are more capable of fulfilling the greatest commandment from Matthew 22:37-40: “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” The more we become like Jesus in character, presence, and action, the more effective we will be for His kingdom, even if that effectiveness comes in ways you never expected or cannot even see.

One of the best stories I’ve heard that illustrates this truth is Phil Vischer’s, who was the original creator of the children’s video series Veggie Tales. While reading his book is well-worthy of your time, I’ll summarize it by saying that Phil saw his wildest dreams come true and then watched it all come crashing down. He went from the mountaintop of reaching millions for Jesus through his creativity, to the abyss of losing everything he had strived for and believed that God had given. And through it all, He learned a lot about God and how the Holy Spirit was working to transform Him into being more like Jesus. The book is filled with incredible encouragement, but here is my favorite quote from it: “If God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream dies, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you — the dream or him.” Phil goes on to encourage us over and over that God is simply enough, even without our smallest dreams ever coming true. “The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we’re pursuing impact. It occurs when we’re pursuing God,” he said.

So, here I am taking that next step in pursuing God. Right now, that next step is letting go of Glimmers in the Fog so that I can have ample time to fully serve in the new role He’s asked me to take on at my church. While it’s not a role that I would’ve initially applied for, the Holy Spirit made it abundantly clear through multiple types of confirmations, that this is the place He wants me to be. And as I ponder the last four to five years leading up to this point, I am praising Him over and over for revealing glimmers of His hand at work, sometimes gently and other times dramatically, engineering circumstances and experiences to knock down my pride, self-reliance, independence, personal agendas, and needs for validation and accomplishment. There may not be a single moment of the obviously miraculous or a second of sparkling brilliance, but taken on the whole, God’s hand has emerged for me like a stunning vista after a long, arduous hike through a dark forest. My heart is overflowing with His assurance that waiting on Him and not getting ahead of Him is always worth it. And like Phil Vischer, I’ve also realized how much I put my dreams of doing something great for God above simply being satisfied in God.

Every single one of my blog posts and podcasts began with a whisper to an audience of only one — me. Each message was something God was directing me to contemplate and oftentimes wrestle with myself. And then He blessed my socks off by letting me share those thoughts with you in case you might also relate and be encouraged.

And now, my friend, I want to encourage you to capture your own story of what God is doing in your life. What glimmers do you see of His hand at work to shape you into being more like Jesus? Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you start a blog, write a book, or anything burdensome. Rather, just keep a journal or notebook — a hard copy or a digital one — and simply jot down, sketch, draw, or make lists about His movement in your life. Lamentations 3:21-22 says, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.” When we capture what God is doing in our souls, we can better recall them to mind, and they become beacons of shining hope to cast light in the dark seasons and places of our lives.

In the months ahead, I’m not going to stop writing down what God whispers to my heart, and I hope at some point that He’ll open the door for me to share them with others again. Maybe through the novel I’m working to finish on my off-days, or perhaps through a new season of blogging and podcasting in the future. But no matter what He does or doesn’t do regarding my desires and dreams, I know this — I’ll be eagerly anticipating that no matter how I spend most of my days, He will simply be enough. Until we meet again, my friend, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Romans 15:13 and Ephesians 3:20-21)

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