The Listening Servant

As I was thinking what I should write about this week, the Lord led me to turn the page in my Mom's devotional book and the title was "Your Servant Is Listening". I thought to myself, Yeah, but where could I go with that for a post? Everyone knows that we should listen to the Lord.  And then I opened up my Mom's NKJV Bible and it turned to Jeremiah 22:21, which says the following, "I spoke to you in your prosperity, But you said, 'I will not hear.' This has been your manner from your youth". So to make this short, I believe God led me to these references to not only encourage you in your walk, but as a reminder to me personally.

So many times (and especially lately), I feel I know what's best for me. I get so independent in my thinking and I don't want to listen to the Lord. He might want me to go in a direction (or away from the one I'm going), and I'd rather resist His counsel and keep doing what I think is best for me. I think every Christian deals with this at some point in their relationship with the Lord. We think our own decisions will turn out alright or we leave God behind most of the time, forgetting to ask Him for an answer. Or we might ask the Lord, but with our own "clocks" ticking away, demanding immediate answers, we jump ahead instead of waiting on the Lord for His answer. And it certainly doesn't help when we live in a secular world where everything is rushed and if you don't grab the chance now, it'll be too late tomorrow. As humans, we feel the decisions we need to make have to be "today or never"; however, we easily forget that the Lord has perfect timing. His time schedule is never "behind" or "runs fast". Yes, my discussion so far has dealt a lot with waiting on the Lord, rather than listening to Him. But you know, they both go hand in hand.

"The realization of our need to listen to the Lord means we are willing to wait for His answer."

So when does God speak to us? When we submit to Him and say "Lord, okay, You know I really want to do this, but I'm not going to move until I hear from You". And how does God speak to us? He speaks to us through His Word. Like I mentioned earlier, God led me to the Jeremiah reference where He gently reminded me to "not move until He speaks". For example, I'm really looking to buy a handheld gun for protection. Though I really think this is the smart thing to do, I need to wait on the Lord. Whether the decision is as small as this or something bigger like marriage, God wants us to "consult" with Him and wait on Him to provide us with His perfect answer. So, we see that He speaks to us through His Word. He also speaks to us through other people, those who counsel us. People like our pastors, youth leaders, parents, other family members, and Christian friends. Those around us who God is speaking through to advise us. He also speaks to us through His Spirit, our "Conscience". You probably know exactly what I'm talking about. That Voice inside of you that says it's wrong to go and do something you will later regret. And quite frankly, He's right every time. In short, God has many modes of communication that He uses to reach us.

But God gives a warning to people who stray away and listen to the counsel of fools. In Proverbs 1:28-32.....

"Then they will call on Me, but I will not answer; they will seek Me diligently, but they will not find Me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them."

And then in Proverbs 1:33, God gently tells us what will happen when His children come to Him and listen to His voice. "But whoever listens to Me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil."

How intelligent it is to listen to the Lord! He knows what is best for you. He cares for your life. He has created you. And when we take the time to listen to the Creator of the earth, there is nothing that will stop Him from talking to you. When you listen for Him to answer you, nothing in heaven or earth can keep Him away.

Proverbs 1:5: "A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel."

Proverbs 1:7: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction."


"So when God speaks to you, listen attentively and prepare to submit to whatever He tells you. Obedience pleases your heavenly Father and He desires to bless you for listening well." ~Charles Stanley, life lessons NKJV, pg. 886)


Blessings,
Anna

Direction After Correction

". . .My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."  Hebrews 12:5,6


The key word here is "love". God doesn't chasten you, because He hates you. Just as when we were kids and were being disobedient, our parents punished us out of love. So God, Whose love is great for us, punishes us when we try to lead our own lives on our own strength. Through chastening, we will most likely find ourselves at a 'dead end road' and find no way to go except back to Who we wandered from: God. Through chastening, we realize our need for God and are reminded that we cannot live a life free from Him. Through chastening, we recognize that our sin is blocking us from having a complete relationship with the Savior and that we must repent in order to rebuild the bridge that separated us.

God never walks away from us. He never chooses to let us out of His hands. He never wants that sin to separate us from Himself. But when we let sin interfere, we ourselves are choosing to be separated from His love and care. We choose to walk away; and hence, why we sometimes don't sense God's presence with us any more.

God isn't always chastising us when life seems to do a back flip; but it's important to eliminate the possibility by examining our lives carefully. Such as when we partake of Communion. We should ask God to show us where we went wrong, and believe that He is faithful to point out the problem(s) that we need to ask forgiveness for and turn away from. He will never close the door in our face or walk away when we desire to repent from whatever sin has been plaguing us.

In a devotional book that I sometimes share stories with you, this one stood out as going along with this post topic very well. "As a professional stock-car racer, Darrell Waltrip was once proud of his image as 'the guy folks loved to hate'. When crowds booed, he'd just kick the dirt and smile. Then things began to change. He miraculously survived a Daytona 500 crash. He began to going to church with his wife, Stevie. He and Stevie began to try to have a family. Stevie, however, suffered four miscarriages. One day their pastor came to visit. He asked, 'Your car is sponsored by a beer company. Is that the image you want?' Darrell had never thought about it. He had always loved watching kids admire his car, but the more he thought about it, he discovered that he did care about his image. He thought, If Stevie's and my prayers were answered for a child, what kind of dad would I be? He remembered his pastor's admonition to 'walk the walk, not just talk the talk'. He didn't know what to do to convince the car owner to change sponsors, but amazingly, an opportunity opened for him to sign with a new racing team sponsored by a laundry detergent company! After much thought and more prayer, he switched teams. Two years later, daughter Jessica was born, and a few years later, daughter Sarah. In 1989, he won Daytona."

As we see in the above story, when Darrell changed his life around by advertising something better on his racing car and refusing to model pictures of beer around the track, God began to answer his and Stevie's prayer regarding their family. Sins truly do block our prayers with God. We cannot believe that God will listen to our cries for help, if we continue to allow the sin to remain in our lives.

God continues to encourage us to live a life pleasing to Him. As in the scene on the famous movie Facing the Giants, Grant pushed his player to do the death crawl across the whole field. Blindfolded, the play cried out in agony as he carried the "140 pound" player on his back to the end zone. Our Spiritual walks are the same. We carry around baggage and it feels that there is no hope in crossing this "field of life". We cry out to God for help, but He seems to be nowhere near us. God is asking us not to give up on Him; but to give up the sin that is separating us from Him. When we do so, we will find ourselves in the "end zone".

"In order to receive the direction from God, you must be able to receive the correction from God."

Sis in Christ,
Anna