I live in gorgeous farming country in Pennsylvania and I see huge silos everywhere, all sizes and styles. But, being a city girl, beyond my freezer, I have no understanding of crop storage. The only thing I know about those huge structures is that they are full of a promise of provision. It makes me wonder about the silos that Joseph filled for Pharaoh during the 7 year period of prosperity. I have a lot of ferret questions about those silos, past and present. For instance, why are most of them round and not square and how do they fill the silos, from the top or the bottom? The ancient silos in Egypt had stair cases that lead to the top and most of their structures were underground so they weren’t very tall, but modern silos…. no stairs. Hum! So, do they use a crane to fill them from the top? How much grain will they hold? How do they keep the silage from rotting or molding? Does the building material matter? Some are brick, some stone. Newer ones are like big steel buildings. See what I mean? I used to just drive past them and they were no more than a part of the scenery until I had an amazing experience, God was teaching me more about His farming system on the other side of sowing and reaping… stores of grace heaped up for us! Woop! Woop!
God has a way of illustrating and explaining things to me by putting images in my “imagination” and then He teaches me what the image means. One night, many years ago, I saw a massive ancient silo in a field. It reached so high that I couldn’t see the top. But there were clouds around the top and a white dove was circling it. It was made of stone and it had two gigantic wooden doors at the bottom, held shut by a massive wooden cross beam. (I wish I was an artist so I could draw the picture for you!) At the bottom of the doors there were many little holes gnawed in the wood so that grain would pour out of the bottom of the silo onto the ground. There were hundreds of little creatures feeding on the grain… birds, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks (maybe even a ferret or two!). They were all having a fine feast and I just knew that they thought this was the most ample supply of food that they would ever have and they were rejoicing in the plentiful flow. I watched the scene for a while and the grain continued to pour out from under the door as the little animals gnawed bigger holes and scratched out the grain and more and more creatures gathered for the feast. It was beautiful to watch! I couldn’t take my eyes off of the little creatures and how happy they seemed to be. Beyond an initial glance upward at the beginning of the vision, I never looked up again, I just focused on the bountiful feast and the little creatures. I don’t know how long I watched before the Holy Spirit, the teacher and revelator, spoke to my heart.
There are 2 verses that matter here, John 14:26 “…the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”; John 16: 13-15 “Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come……he shall receive of mine and shall show it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; therefore said I, that he shall take of mine and show it unto you.” And with that, The Holy Spirit began to teach me about the silo.
He explained that the creatures in the grain are the “Church”. They, like me, are drawn to the bounty lying on the ground, and they never look up past the holes in the bottom of the doors. They believe they are feasting on God’s best blessings and that this supply is as good as it gets because they rely on what they see. And as far as they can see, scattered across the field, the grain keeps flowing. They believe that God is good and God’s grace is abundant but words like “good” and “abundant grace” are defined, in them, by their own personal experiences. In their minds, God is as big and good and full of grace as their experiences tell them He is.
The Holy Spirit told me to look up toward the top of the silo, so I strained my eyes trying to see all the way to top of it, of course, that was impossible. I suddenly felt weak and dwarfed, overcome by the vast size of it, and then He quoted this scripture to me. I Cor. 2: 9-10 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God (I still love that phrase!) has revealed them unto us by His Spirit…” OMG!!!!! I was stunned!
The Holy Spirit went on saying that God, the ultimate farmer, has a storehouse of His grace and blessings that cannot be comprehended by the mind of man. And He desires to show Himself to His people in the TRUE and FULL abundance of blessings that He has stored up for them. But, sadly, He is unable to do so. Of course, my question was… WHY? His answer…“because the church is standing in the way”! WHAT? How can we be in His way? And the Spirit went on… If He opened the doors and allowed the deluge of blessings to flow all at once, it would overwhelm (the creatures) His church! Some creatures would scatter in fear and never return and some would be overcome and buried by the flood, of course, some would react quickly and stay in the flow, but the feast, as they know it, would be wiped out. Would that mean that the church would be shattered by the impact of the deluge? I couldn’t even think of what God was saying! All I knew, in my heart, was that the silo was filled with a fearful, awesome and overwhelming store… who could ever handle that?
Then, the Holy Spirit gave me a flash photo in my mind and I saw another picture of God barely cracking the doors on the silo, and The Holy Spirit was unleashed on the baby church in Jerusalem. The Pharisees and Sadducees never knew what hit them, they were buried by the deluge and they were never revived! The Holy Spirit explained that they were putting their faith in their own ability to chew the holes in the door and scratch out the grain for themselves. They had no idea of the true source of those blessings, they never looked up! The sound of the wind (the rush of the blessing flowing out) was powerful enough to bring thousands of curious on-lookers to see what was going on, the disciples, who were expecting to receive “something”, heard the deafening sound, saw the fire dancing above their heads and out of their mouths came tongues they had never learned. They were suddenly swimming in the abundance of grace that was pouring out from the doors of the silo and they boldly began to invite the on- lookers to share in the flow of God’s blessings. You see, they had looked up when Jesus left them and the Angel told them to keep looking up because Jesus would come again the way He left. Yup! Today’s church would definitely be in the way! Some would ride the wave because they had looked up and understood the silo, some would run in fear because they didn’t even know there was a silo, they only know the blessing flowing from under the doors by their own good works and, finally, some would be overwhelmed and buried, self-absorbed in their own pile of blessings thinking they had amassed the blessings themselves, never knowing what hit them… I wanted to cry. Would the doors open further, would the new participants get in the way of the outpouring or would the gush keep coming, carrying everyone with it?
I was suddenly taken back to the original image of the silo, the doors were closed and the little creatures were safe. Now, I could feel God’s heart! He loves those little creatures but He also has a need to open the doors of the silo to let His full blessing flow. The world, which he loves with equal passion, is in desperate need of the Silo’s contents, they have been in spiritual famine too long. What is to be done? My heart was broken!
The Holy Spirit continued to quote more of I Cor. 2: 10- 16 “…The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God… Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God; that we might KNOW the things that are freely given to us of God….which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man (a man who defines God by his own fleshly experiences – my explanation) receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned…But we have the mind of Christ.”
So that was it…we have to get the church to LOOK UP! We have to discern, spiritually, God’s silo filled with the abundance of God’s grace and blessings with a potential of power that is beyond our understanding. (Eph. 3: 20 “Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and ] do superabundantly more than all we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes or dreams]…”) And we have to be prepared and so strong and rooted in His love that, instead of being overwhelmed by that unfathomable gush of grace, those blessings will flow through us to the world instead of crushing us! Whew! No pun intended… but that is a “tall” order!
I think all of us sense that the creation time clock is running down, now. Jesus, in his explanation of the end times (Matt. 24, Luke 22) said it would be like the days of Noah, people would be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage and, in Genesis, we see that there was also great violence and rage and every imagination of men was evil continually. But Noah, who dared to look up found his deliverance and blessing in God’s storehouse. The skies opened and the land was covered with water, but Noah was supremely blessed, the ark was full of the outpouring of God’s grace. In II Timothy 3: 1-7, men in the last days are described as totally reprobate… having a form of religion but denying the power thereof, ever learning but never coming to the TRUTH! Jesus says “look up”…. In the midst of the worst storms, the silo still stands strong and it has the blessings of God that we need, not only to survive, but to thrive as we farm the world for a harvest!
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from that silo, but recognizing God’s storehouse and understanding the purpose of the silo comes first! OK! I see a lot of ferret trails coming from this silo! Woohoo!!! Little moon walk, twist and shout!!!
Ferret of Faith 