shut up & listen

When I was on staff at Christ Chapel, we had an hour's worth of prayer time at the beginning of our day, Monday-Friday.

When our pastor, John Wood, first mandated this, I had a deeply spiritual response to it in my head...

“Oh great! How in the world am I supposed to get anything done if I spend an hour at the beginning of the workday praying?!”

Like I said, it was a deeply spiritual (& pouty) response. ;-)

6 weeks or maybe a little longer after initiating this prayer time, I began to wonder how we'd EVER managed to get anything done WITHOUT having the prayer time.

Amazing, isn't it?

Many months after that I was walking around the room in which we had prayer, talking with God about a relationship I had with someone that had just fallen apart.

I was just walking around, figuratively wringing my hands, talking to God about this person & about how I just didn't know what to do about our relationship.

This person was & is pretty important to me.

Anyway, super-holy me is whining about all this when this thought dropped into my head...

(God communicates with me like that – by just dropping thoughts into my head – maybe I'll explain that one day – that's another conversation...)

So, He drops this thought in my head...

“Galatians 6”

I thought, “Galatians 6? What about Galatians 6?!”

(yeah, another example of a holy response! ;-) LOL)

The thought remained – “Galatians 6”.

Well, I figured maybe I was supposed to read it – maybe there was something there that might give me some focus in regards to this person.

So I started reading Galatians 6.

You might want to know that God seldom speaks to me like that – as a matter of fact, I don't think He's done that since – seemingly specifically leading me to go read somewhere in the Bible.

Now, let's just says that the beginning of that chapter in Paul's letter to the Jesus followers in Galatia that there's not a whole lot there that would apply to my ruptured relationship.

And me being the uber-spiritual person that I am was have a uber-holy response to all these verses that seemingly didn't relate to my situation.

I think what I thought was something along the line of “Oh, crap... this isn't helping me at all!!!”

(I'm so amazingly holy... LOL)

Well, then I got to verse 9...

“So don't get tired of doing what is good.

“Don't get discouraged & give up,

for we will reap a harvest of blessing

at the appropriate time.”

Yeah...

The part that said “don't get discourage & give up” really slapped me across the face.

It was an anchor that God gave me to hold on to for that person & our relationship.

And that verse has been an anchor that I've held on to since that day to only for that relationship, but for a lot of other things & situations in my life.

I printed it up & put it on our refrigerator – yeah, it's THAT important! ;-) LOL

(I know what you're thinking – could we get to the point here?!)

My point is this...

This communication would never have occurred if I hadn't been listening out for God to speak to me on a daily basis.

God isn't like a celestial vending machine, popping out advice & guidance only on rare occasions when we thing we really need it.

If we want God to speak to us with any consistency,

we gotta read the Bible every day, without fail,

& also basically shut up & listen out for whatever it is He might want to communicate.

Trust me, that was NOT what I was expecting Him to say about that relationship that day.

But He did.

And that communication has spilled over into other areas of my life.

I wish I could report that my relationship with that person is all sweetness & light.

It's not.

But it is better.

It may never be what it could be until we both get to heaven.

But it is better.

But I still wouldn't have that connection with that person if I felt like God gave me specific direction to “don't get discouraged & give up” because if I didn't have that mandate from Him, I would have given up on this person a LONG time ago.

So...

Read the Bible every day, without fail.

Shut up & listen out for what He might drop into your head as a response.