Happy Atoms

Despite Joel’s prophecy about sons and daughters prophesying , old men dreaming dreams and young men seeing visions, when it comes to those kind of things happening to me, I confess to being suspicious. I have such an active imagination that I am not sure that the vision or the picture is Holy Spirit generated or Mel inspired.

Last night at a prayer meeting I had such a vision – a snapshot of a picture. We had been praying for a friend who had been to see a doctor about a recurring difficulty in breathing. She was due to go on holiday and was wondering whether she would be fit enough to travel. In the meeting we prayed for her.

As we were praying, I had a picture of two scuba divers. I don’t know how far under water they were, but the air tank of one of the divers stopped working. There was no oxygen getting through and she was in difficulty. The other scuba diver came up close, took a deep breath and then passed the mask over to his friend. The two of them sharing the mask, taking turns at breathing, were able to make it safely back to the surface. My fellow prayer partners found it very encouraging – a picture about air and breathing. God was making up the shortfall of oxygen for our sick friend.

I was in a science lesson once where they were talking about the molecular structure of elements on the periodic table. It had something to do with the number of atoms (?) or protons (?) in outer rings. Where there is an odd number, the element is reactive in the sense that it pinches an atom off another element, or two elements agree to share an atom. They bond. The only ones that really don’t need to pinch or share are the ones with an even number of atoms, preferably eight. Noble gasses on the far right of the periodic table have all eight atoms on their outside ring, so they don’t react – they are happy atoms.

Human beings are not happy atoms. Regardless of our age, race, gender, social or ethnic origin we are always missing that even number. We are always pinching off others, sometimes agreeing to share, because we are missing an atom. We are not complete in and of ourselves.

We are always in need. God made us that way. It is intentional.

When the Psalmist says “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want,” what he is reminding us of is that whatever we are in need of, God will supply. He will meet the shortfall that is in us. My diver could only reach the safety of the water if she remained swimming beside her friend with the working oxygen tank. God’s “oxygen tank” is the only one truly working properly. We “shall not be in want” only according to how close we remain next to God.