Hi all! For Week 24, I am excited to share something from my friend Amy. I love that God speaks in a myriad of ways - and in ways that are also often outstanding and unexpected! Here Amy explains how God spoke to her through YouTube shorts and the animal kingdom, and how these prompted her to reflect on the eternal Kingdom.
In Amy's words...
I am 29 years old and a few weeks ago I watched my first ever YouTube Short! I was quite impressed with myself that I held out for so long and was worried that having given in to this particular branch of social media I might inadvertently allow it to consume my life. Now, I will say that there have been some late nights due to Shorts and I have had to implement some self imposed restrictions. However, I also had something wonderful come out of this new addition to my entertainment.Â
One genre of Shorts that I was really drawn to (and so ended up seeing a lot of) were videos about people who had rescued, helped or otherwise aided infant wild animals. Some of these were more docile animals like deer, but others were dangerous animals like bears and lions.Â
In all of these narratives the person helped the animal they had found in distress, usually providing medical care, and then supporting them to reintegrate into the wild, to learn to hunt or to find family. But, also in each story the animal came back. These videos presented a concept to me that if we can show, even dangerous animals, from a young age that they do not need to be afraid of us, then we can form lifelong friendships with them.Â
I want to be clear these videos were not about people finding, saving and keeping animals as pets. In all these videos the human involved helped and encouraged the animal in question to return to their life in the wild, but the animal chose to return to visit their human companion regularly as they were now part of the animals life and a friend.Â
One creator in particular was most interesting to me as he had chosen to live with a group of lions from when they were young and so now, when the lions were adults and had children of their own, they treated him as a member of the pride and welcomed him as their own.Â
This content brought me great joy and hope for our future in heaven. I have always found it hard to imagine a world where we will be at peace with animals and they too could live in peace with each other as it says in Isaiah 11...
Watching these videos helped me to trust God that this is possible. Over centuries animals have learned to fear us, often with good reason. But God can take away their fear and our cruelty which is the reason for it. I find this a beautiful truth and it makes me feel like I am full of light and goodness. Through it God has uplifted me and brought yet another source of His joy.Â
I am so excited to live in a community with all kinds of animals from the smallest to the largest and to love them as I would a pet, whilst knowing they are free and wild as they should be. Through this God has made me even more excited for Heaven and I must say I never thought this would be what I gained from watching Shorts!
Amy grew up in Surrey, and lived in the same home all her life until she went to University. After University she got married and moved with her husband to Croydon. After a few years they both felt they wanted to live with more people so moved to Oxford to live with 2 friends from University. They have lived in Oxford for almost 4 years now. In that time, Amy has worked mostly for charities and has spent the last years working for organisations that support victims and survivors of modern slavery - and she loves it! She is a vegan (mostly), and singer and dancer and in her free time she likes to bake and play board games.
Thank you all so much for looking at story of God connecting with his people. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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