This morning has been glorious! I don't know about you, but I love waking up with a goal and motivation to fulfill the goal. Josh and I are trying to be better about the "early to bed, early to rise" motto, once again. Yes, yes, we may fail, but there's nothing more humbling than getting back on the horse. This morning we woke up, put on grunge clothes, hats and sneakers and walked down the hill to our favorite little coffee shop. Over a black and white iced mocha (Anna) and a non-fat vanilla latte (Josh), we both individually pursued God in our personal devo's. We've been attempting to hold one another accountable to getting in the Word on a personal level and then sharing with each other what the Lord is showing us. This morning was a great example of that.
I've been reading out of my new "The Message: Remix" version and soaking up an out of the ordinary way of reading the "story." Today found me in the book of 1 Samuel and Samuel's attempt at hearing the voice of God when he was young. Samuel had a vantage point, a mentor of sorts, Eli (whose two sons were living in disobedience to God). I love the fact that the scripture says God called Samuel three times and then Samuel finally decided that it wasn't his spiritual mentor's voice calling him, but God himself, the ultimate spiritual guide.
Let me share a theme that I've been learning lately in my own life. It goes something like this: Scripture is one big story from start to finish of God's redemptive workings among his creation and his people. How often I tend to loose sight that I am NOT the main character in this story, but that God is! I am NOT the main event, Christ is! I have been graciously invited to play a role in his infinate, eternal story through the pages of history, however vast and complicated and confusing the story plot may seem at times. Praise God, that he invited me to play a role!
John Elderedge, popular Christian author, put together some of his writings into one book titled, "The Ransomed Heart." Each page is a separate selection from various books he has previously written. Today's selection I read was about Samuel hearing the voice of God and consequently hearing the "distant whisper" of God's voice in the pages of the story God is writing and starring in.
Elderedge writes, "In our modern pragmatic world we often have no such mentor [Eli], so we do not understand it is God speaking to us in our heart. Having so long been out of touch with our deepest longing, we fail to recognize the voice and the One who is calling to us through it. Frustrated by our heart's continuing sabotage of a dutiful Christian life, some of us silence the voice by locking our heart away in the attic, feeding it only the bread and water of duty and obligation until it is almost dead, the voice now small and weak. But sometimes in the night, when our defenses are down, we still hear it call to us, oh so faintly--a distant whisper. Come morning, the new day's activities scream for our attention, the sound of the cry is gone, and we congratulate ourselves on finally overcoming the flesh...Having thus appeased our heart, we nonetheless are forced to give up our spiritual journey because our heart will no longer come with us. It is bound up in the little indulgences we feed it to keep it at bay."
God is calling us, he invites us to play a role in his story. How will we listen and how well will we respond when he calls? Samuel heard from the Lord, a fortelling of things to come to his spiritual mentor and his sons, for their unfaithfulness. Samuel told Eli what God said, which was no easy task. What God told Samuel of was death and destruction and shortened lives for their unfaithfulness. What will we do when God calls? Will we acknowledge his voice and play our role in his story, or will we allow pride to overtake our hearts and consume our minds as we settle for nothing less than the Main Character's role in the story?
The other conversation Josh and I had on our way back up the hill was what God was showing Josh this morning. In essence: we have an opposing side, the Devil and his minions. We have a Victor and victory: Christ and his salvation he has so graciously lavished on those who believe.
It is the Satan who tempts; it is God who tests. Christians tend to get the two mixed up at times. Satan places things in our paths that he holds up in front of us to entice our sinful nature and appeal to our flesh. He says, "you can be like God, just do this..." God uses those times of temptation to test how real and hardcore our faith in him really is. The tempting is what Satan uses to throw us off the main plot of the story. The testing is what God uses to say, "now what will you do with it?" How will we undergo the tempting and testing in our lives and how will the outcome alter or change the nature and purpose of the overall story?
Praise God for his victory over Satan, hell and evil! I'm so glad we serve the Victor, the Champion who has already defeated the evil one. Praise the Lord that he is on our side. "And if Christ be for us, who can be against us?"!
In Grace and Truth...
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