LAST CHRISTMAS I
WAS DISTRACTED AS I OFTEN AM DURING the holidays. Every year I say I’m going to
get better about scaling back so I can really keep my focus where it needs to
be for the season. I have moments where I do this well. But I have other moments
that are just plain pitiful.
Honestly, I can
be an utter nincompoop.
I was rushing
about, frustrated. I went to Target for wrapping paper and somehow left the
store having spent ninety-seven dollars on who knows what. Then got all the way
home before I realized I left the wrapping paper on that little shelf
underneath the shopping cart. At checkout I didn’t remember to grab it and
purchase it. So all my moments of trying to match this and that to keep up with
expectations in this Pinterest-crazed world were all for nothing. Now I’d be
using recycled bags
I was so caught
up in the rush of superficial things in my world that I missed
hearing the cries
for help in someone else’s world. God had been prompting me to listen, really
listen, to stop and focus and give him just a few minutes. But I refused. I
rushed past. And I acted like I was perfectly justified in doing so.
When all of life
feels like an urgent rush from one demand to another, we become forgetful. We
forget simple things like where we put our car keys or that one crucial
ingredient for dinner when we run into the grocery store. But even more
disturbing, we forget God. We say with our mouths that we are trusting and
relying on God, but are we really?
A quick check to
see if this is true is our ability to notice what God wants us
to notice and our
willingness to participate when God invites us to
participate. The
one who obeys God’s instruction for today will develop a keen awareness of His
direction for tomorrow. I’m always asking God for direction, but I’ll miss it
if I constantly ignore His instruction.
It’s in those
little breaks in our companionship with God where confusion sets in about what
we’re really supposed to do. we must not confuse the command to love with the
disease to please? Not being able to hear God’s direction is the exact spot
where this confusion gets so many of us in trouble.
Have you ever
heard that amazing verse from Isaiah “that says, “Whether you turn to the right
or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the
way; walk in it’ ” (30:21)? I love this verse! I want it to be true for me! I
want my ears to hear God say,
“This is the way;
walk in it.”
I want that with
every fiber of my being. Don’t you? Can you imagine how much angst and pain we
could save ourselves if we were really that in tune with God?
This is what the
Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance
and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and
trust is your strength,
but you would
have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we
will flee on horses.’
Therefore you
will flee!
You said, ‘We
will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your
pursuers will be swift!
A thousand will
flee”
At the threat of
one;
at the threat of
five
you will all flee
away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff
on a mountaintop,
like a banner on
a hill.”
Yet the LORD
longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will
rise up to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a
God of justice.
Blessed are all
who wait for him! (30:15–18)
Right here the
Amplified Bible adds blessed are those “who [earnestly] wait for Him, who
expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His
peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!” (v. 18). Who
doesn’t love that?
You turn to the
right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you,
saying, “This is
the way; walk in it.” Then you will desecrate your idols
overlaid with
silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a
menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!” (vv. 19–22)
This is how God
is speaking to me through these scriptures.
• God asks us to
return and rest.
• But we say no
and speed on our own course.
(Remember the
rush can often make us rebellious.)
• The Lord is
gracious and shows us loving-kindness even while we run ourselves
ragged.
• He hears our
cries. He answers with compassion.
• Yes, there are
consequences for our refusal to listen, but there’s always a second chance to
experience that unbroken companionship when we wait expectantly for Him—or, as
the Amplified Bible says, when we look and long for Him.
• So He whispers,
“Say hi to her; pick up that cup; have those girls over for
dinner. Look for
Me. Long for Me “Experience unbroken companionship with Me.Then we will see and
hear Him.
• And these other
idols we’re so bent on chasing—anything we prioritize over God—we’ll be able to
let them go.
Do I do this
perfectly? Obviously not. If we want to hear from the Lord, we must confess
that sometimes we walk right past the Lord’s instruction and set ourselves up
to miss His direction. If we want His direction for our decisions, the great
cravings of our souls must not only be the big moments of assignment. They must
also be the seemingly small instructions in the most ordinary of moments when
God points His Spirit finger saying, Go there. And in doing that, we are
companions of God with eyes and ears more open, more able, more.
