I try to keep a consistent prayer time, which is usually early in the morning. One morning, I had a funny experience. I was asking God to provide someone with the guidance they needed to resolve an issue in their life. Now I cannot claim to have ever heard God physically speak to me. However, at this moment I received a very clear mental image of God standing close by, in a fatherly pose – you know, arms crossed over His chest – shaking His head at me and asking, “Really?” I suddenly felt exactly like DiNozzo looked after receiving a Gibbs-slap to the back of the head on the show NCIS. The only response I could muster was an embarrassed “DUH!”
If you don’t get it, let me try to explain. There is a song we sing which contains the phrase, “You’re a good, good Father – it’s who You are, it’s who You are…” As the perfect Father, God is constantly providing certain things for His children, even without our asking. It occurred to me that guidance is indeed one of those things. At every turn, He knows the path and the decision which will result in the greatest good for our lives and He tries to communicate that choice to us in many ways. He’s THE good Father and He loves us, so that is what He does.
The real question is, are we even trying to listen for and recognize His direction? There are many ways in which we squelch or tune out the voice of God while He is trying to communicate with us. We may have not talked with Him in so long that we have forgotten the sound of His voice – or doubt that He even tries to talk with us. We may have decided to take over the reins in our life and not pay attention to Godly advice in any form – at least until we make a mess so big that we cry to Him in despair. Maybe we have purposely ignored God for so long that we’ve become callous toward Him and unable to hear or feel His direction.
Maybe we just don’t care what He thinks is best for us.
My prayers changed that morning. I no longer ask for guidance, either for myself or others. Instead, I ask that God would enable us to clearly see and understand those directions God is already providing for us each and every day. I must admit that making this change is truly a work in progress as some days the path still seems fuzzier than I would like. However, I’m confident that God will grant me His vision as the timing and circumstances are right.
I pray you find that confidence for your life as well.
Mark S.
