A MOVE OF GOD IN A SWARM OF BEES

A MOVE OF GOD IN A SWARM OF BEES

In the summer of 1969 I had just graduated from high school, and cultural change had been brewing like a hot beehive swarming. Political and social radicals were being tried for murder and mayhem. The Vietnam War was in full swing.  Riots and protests were the norm, and young men were either nervously applying as conscientious objectors, or registering for the draft and considering the reality of their number being called.  Outward appearances labeled you by the establishment as either "in" or "out",  hippie or square. Inter-generational battles seemed to wage in every household over things like the length of hair, or length of skirts.

For families it was as if this business of bees swarming was happening right inside their homes.  My dad kept bees in our backyard, so I got to watch their patterns at close range.  When the old queen had laid the new queen eggs, it was time for her to depart, and leave the hive, but not without taking with her more than half the workers.

Like the current social milieu, there was a lot of noise and  angry looking clouds of bees looking for a new home where there was some breathing space. Being the oldest of four, I imagine I had more influence on my siblings than I wanted to admit.  I must say that my fathers offer of haircuts to many of my guy friends was beyond tolerable humor.  I was hungry for change on many levels, and left high school frustrated with the emphasis on outward appearance rather than heart.

I had grown up in the church, but was exhausted with trying to keep all my spiritual balls in the air.  I, like every other eighteen year old, wanted to go away to college, and find my own way.  I challenged God to come and get me if He was for real. Then I briefly tried being a "partyer," which was surprisingly boring.

Then a friend invited me to an event and I quite unexpectedly found myself in the midst of miraculously delivered prostitutes, and heroin addicts.  I was awestruck!  God really did this stuff!?! Only God could change peoples lives like that.   I saw something of God that I had yet to experience.  I wanted it desperately.  I hungered for inner transformation.  I was swept up in a wave of God that was to permanently change me.  What I had learned in the sweet churches I had grown up in suddenly had greater meaning.  My life had new depth and purpose.  My previous values and desires for a white-picket-fence-life became meaningless, and I really just wanted to know a God who really transformed lives.  I realize now, it was only the beginning of understand how really transformational this new found relationship with God was.