Potential Prophets on the Move

Have you ever tried to speak to someone who is busy? I mean, you knock on their door, ask if it’s a good time, they say “sure”, and so you enter and here’s what you see: a person typing, filing, organizing, working, creating. But they told you they were listening, so you make attempts to talk. You start to share something important, or some instruction or information, but they never stop moving. “I’m listening, keep going!”, they interject into your awkward pauses, but they rarely make eye contact, and their minds are clearly elsewhere. Even if they are able to regurgitate some form of what you said to them, do you feel like you were heard? Do you feel like they really caught the heart and value of what you were trying to convey?

Me either.

It’s a challenge to continue to interact with this type of person on a regular basis. They TELL you that you are important and that they value what you’re saying, but you can’t help thinking that if they can’t even consistently pause and look up from what they are doing for 15 minutes, how important do they REALLY think you are?

Ok…. wait wait wait… I need a moment to sit here and repent for often being that person before I go on…. (the conviction is thick up in here, just sayin’)

All of this made me wonder, all the times in the Bible where it reads, “the word of the Lord came to me”, how did that happen? I guess I’ve always just assumed it was always some big and mighty way, like a dream, lightening and thunder, or a talking donkey, but what if that wasn’t always the case?

What if, it was in the quiet or stillness of a morning meditation or during a long walk? What if it was during the reading of scripture at the tabernacle? What if it was through the most hopeless, painful life experience they could endure and they had been crying out to a silent sky for longer than they thought possible?

What if, God hasn’t changed and he’s still trying to come to us and give us “the word of the Lord”, but we are going at the speed of light, doing all the things (some of them even in His name!), and we feel like we’re listening, but we aren’t, really. What if, bear with me now, this is out of my own conviction here, what if, He comes to us with a word, and we are too distracted to really hear him. We’re all “Mhhmm, yes, ok, I hear you, I’m listening, go on…” and yet we never look up from our desire for approval or a need to control, or whatever our idol is, to really hear what He’s saying. We know He’s there, we love Him, we acknowledge Him, but He just isn’t actually as important as we think we are making Him. What if other things have the majority of our time and attention, and we have it in our minds to get to Him later when things slow down a bit.

One day this past week, I felt God telling me to sit with Him. I said “OK” and then ended up doing something else (it’s a really busy season for me). He had to ask me several times. I finally did it – because I felt I had to. I stopped everything and sat with him for a moment. I enjoyed His presence and the things He taught me. I came away from it feeling like He had given me some great insight, and I was glad that I had stopped. And then, I met a friend for coffee later that day, and as she poured out her heart and current situation with me, I slowly began to realize that everything God had shown me in that quiet time was a message for HER, not me. The words I heard from Him and the things I learned were an answer to HER heart’s cry that she couldn’t hear through the storm occurring in her world.

When I got to my car afterward, I had to sit and tell Him thank you. He had been so persistent for me to sit with Him. I realized that I had selfishly assumed that taking a moment with Him is done for MY benefit each time, and since it’s for ME, it won’t matter if I go a few days without doing it – because I’m “fine” and coping well, thank you very much. I think I forgot that God has always used “normal, average” people to speak for Him or act on his behalf. If I keep staying too busy, I might just remove myself from being usable to speak His word to others. I had almost missed it (oh my, how many times have I missed it?) If not for HIS sense of urgency, I confess, I wouldn’t have stopped at all. Are you like me?

Pause. Take a moment. Still your body, your mind, your emotions, your intentions, your pain. Position yourself to hear Him and receive from Him. You may just find that He gives you a word for someone else.