Living Life in and out of God’s Cocoon
I saw them come in out of the corner of my eye. They stood out in the crowd like flies on a birthday cake. It was a rough looking gang of hoods numbering over 20, swaggering with an attitude as they walked up the side and sat close to the platform.
It was the spring of 1992 and I was in Merida Yucatan Mexico in the Kukulcan Sports Arena about to preach to the largest crowd I had ever been in front of. My knees began to wobble; my life was in danger thousands of miles from home, but before me stood crowds of needy people. I just lowered my head and spoke silently to my Father. “Lord, You know I am willing to lay my life down for You, but You have promised me many great things and I can’t accomplish them if I am dead. I am in Your hands.”
All of a sudden the place and the situation around me melted away and I felt like I had been translated to the “cleft of the rock,” a cocoon-like place of protection where the physical body is not necessarily there, but the spiritual man is “abiding under the shelter of his wings.” It is a place of no feeling and no emotions. No matter what is happening around you, everything is overshadowed by a greater reality of He who is protecting you.
How quickly things changed… just a few days before I had arrived at the airport with thousands of people waiting to welcome me and reporters waiting to speak to me, now I’m standing at the place of destination in fear. Leading up to this, God had supernaturally provided the advertising for our event, as He does many times, by coinciding with a vote of the Mexican government concerning the ownership of property by protestant groups (cults as they were called by the Religious majority). To this day I don’t remember what I said to the reporters, but I do remember how special I felt as they sang to me,wearing their native costumes.
Months before, a well known Christian leader of the city had asked me if I would be willing to come and preach at the largest Christian event in the city, which was held annually. I remember thinking, “Wow me" at first, until he described how a group of gang thugs had pulled the previous year’s speaker of the platform as he preached and had beaten him up pretty badly, screaming at him all the while, “Receive this in the name of the virgin Mary.” Fearless Me was quick to say, Yes, but I really didn’t know what I was getting into. I arrogantly thought to myself that as a former State Championship Wrestler, I could take out the first few that might come up to the platform, but brought along two sons in the ministry with me to serve as bodyguards as well. The first was a six-foot, all-muscle black belt instructor Columbian kid and , and the second was the biggest Mexican I had ever seen over six feet tall and was a Navy MP or something. Neither guy was someone you wanted to mess with. These guys were “bad,” but what had just walked in was “badder” and I would be exposed when I stepped up alone behind the podium. It was one of those moments when no matter how much you plan, if God doesn’t handle it for you, you’re toast.
My spiritual father Don Atkin teaches about the Christian life being like the transformation or metamorphosis when God takes a worm (the old man) puts him in a cocoon (the Holy Spirit) and then after the process of time, out comes a beautiful butterfly (the new man in Christ-likeness). This cocoon stage is a very important place.
My friend Sam Hinn speaks about it like this, “In His presence is the only place where God change can come” to the life of a Christian. Sam always said as Benny Hinn’s brother he had been in the presence of many great men, but “man will never change in the presence of man.”
I like to borrow a term Moses used describing this special place with God…The Cleft of the Rock. It's Jesus… its being IN 
HIM, as the Word says. It’s a place of rest to the weary and protection to the distressed, but it’s also a place of introspection as nothing can hide there and all is exposed before Him who sees all things. With the current world crisis and difficulties all around us- Oh, how we need to find this place of protection, rest and change!
How do you do it? you may ask. I need to go there. It is as simple as a prayer. You don’t have to mouth the words, stop talking to the person in front of you, or even move physically away from the problem. Just zone out, so to speak; step into His presence and feel those arms coming around you right now. The saints of old went there as their bodies were being burned at the stake or as they were being torn apart by the lions. I went there for six whole months as I watched my two-year-old only granddaughter wasting away in the intensive care room until she passed on with the Lord. He was sufficient then and even though there were moments when carnal people pulled me out, I rapidly stepped into that place again.
Challenges, decisions, difficulties, threats, worries, anxieties, fears, failures, they all loom before me now like a giant but there is a blood line between my problems and me. It’s the blood of the King who rules and reigns in my kingdom. He calls to you and me now.
Some of you might say that sounds like a coping mechanism and my response is; it's much more than that, but it does beat a bottle of pills in your purse, a trip to the North Florida Mental Hospital or drinking yourself stupid and making ABC Liquors rich.
Matt 11:28 beckons us, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
We are spiritual beings living in a physical body but the spiritual is more real than the physical.
Ps 91:1 encourages us that, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I feel Him right now as I write this… let it go, just step back into His waiting arms.
Now that you are at peace, I will finish the story because I know you can’t wait to hear if I got the stuffing kicked out of me. The moment came when I had to preach and just before I began, the Lord specifically told me to turn and look at the gang members. I did so, and I remember staring at the leader in particular. And I don’t know what he saw (probably a couple of giant angels), but he suddenly stood up and walked out with the others following him like he was the pied piper. I went on and preached and had a powerful meeting. They never came back.
Sometimes you get deliverance from the problem...sometimes you get deliverance through the problem…but He is always there. Never doubt that. Make a commitment right now to find your place of shelter and safety today. No matter if you call it a cocoon, the cleft of the Rock, or the shadow of His wings... it’s there for you right now.
Jose Bosque
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