Catching the Wind: Finding Vision in a World of Chaos - Softcover

Townsend, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0595163084 ISBN 13: 9780595163083

Publisher: iUniverse, 2000

Synopsis

Catching the Wind invites you to see what God is doing in your life to win you to Himself. You will explore the incredible story of how God seeks to capture you as His Beloved. You will find Carl a master story-teller, weaving personal narratives, biblical insights, and the insights of others in an amazing story of how to find Vision and Place in a world of Chaos. The book is written to lead you in a dialog process, guiding you through stories and questions to find the deepest longings of your own heart and focusing these into a personal vision and the identify God has for you.

About this title

About the Author

Carl Townsend is the founder and president of Strategic Resources Ministry. He lives in Portland, Oregon and has been active in the local city initiative, Mission Portland as well as having written over thirty books in the last twenty years.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Invitation to a Table On the second date with the lady who later became my wife, she invited me to a dinner she prepared for me before we went out. What I didn t know was that she was a country cook par excellence, and her cooking could slay any man. It was an incredible table. She had fixed fried chicken. I don t mean just fried chicken, but Sandy s fried chicken. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Not buds or flakes, but the real stuff. English peas. There was also a heart-shaped jello salad, homemade biscuits, and for dessert a cherry pie she had made from scratch. She did it all as a gift to me. To a single guy who did little cooking, this was it.

I was sitting there with this gorgeous girl, eating her feast and praising God. There has got to be a message here somewhere. There was. Sandy was saying she placed herself in abandonment to me. She was choosing me. She wanted a relationship, adventure, romance, and intimacy. She cared, she loved, and she wanted to give from this. She was asking me to place myself in abandonment to her, to care, to love, and to enter into a relationship. If I could do that, the gifts on the table were mine. Moreover, this was only a taste of what she had ahead for me. I wanted the relationship. We were engaged about four months later.

Isn t this what God does? There s a banquet table there. On the table are incredible visions, dreams, adventure, romance, and intimacy. On the table also are rich spiritual gifts. God says you are chosen. God is asking you to come to a feast, and has recklessly abandoned Himself to you through the death of His Son. As we come close to the table, we see gifts with our own name on them, unique gifts given to us and no one else. God is asking us to recklessly abandon ourselves to Him for an Adventure, Intimacy, and Romance that is beyond our comprehension. If we can place ourselves in such reckless abandonment, the gifts are ours! Moreover, what we see on the table now is only a taste of what lies ahead.

For most of us, we live on substitute invitations. We don t listen with our hearts. We don t want the heart to be wounded, so we substitute invitations so that our heart remains protected and we live in smaller stories than those God intended. We are willing to live on the lonely meal that we can cook rather than risk the heart for the bigger table and the romance that could be a part of it. We never hear the call to the greatest Adventure and Romance, and continue to live in our small stories.

What invitation are you waiting for? Are you shielding your heart from something in relationship to this invitation? Was there a wounding in the past, or a fear in the present that keeps you from accepting an invitation that is being given to you? What is your deepest desire? What if God is trying to woo you through His invitation?

Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0595163084
• ISBN 13: 9780595163083
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248