I'm Not Listening

The title is from a song that Mitchell wrote. It's now running through my head. I hope he records it some day so others can hear it too.

Lately it seems that things keep happening showing me that I'm not listening to God. And at the same time, I am listening and trying to do things He tells me to do. Sound confusing? No wonder my life has seemed complicated lately, huh? But listening seems to be a theme lately.

I recently started working with our youth group at church. I was preparing a lesson and felt God's leading to do a study on Hearing His Voice. He guided me step-by-step to find a book to use and I followed him step-by-step. The book is called Hearing God's Voice by Henry and Richard Blackaby. I'm only 3 chapters into it and I'm loving it. I've taught the youth, but they seemed bored. Mitchell tells me they weren't bored, just teens. Either way, *I* have learned a lot already.

A couple weeks ago I had this weird thing where I felt like I was supposed to move stuff from our freezer in our barn--the one I thought worked really well--to the freezer in the house--which doesn't work all that well. It made no sense so I ignored it. Several days later Roger came in from the barn and informed me that the freezer in the barn had died probably several days earlier. aaack! Why didn't I at least go check?

Yesterday I laid down for a nap. I was really really tired. As I laid down I realized I needed to go give the ducks water. It was that same nagging sensation. But thinking I was only going to sleep for a few minutes because that's all I usually get to nap I ignored it. I woke up an hour later and went to take care of the ducks. We had 18 ducks and 10 of them were now dead. Actually only 9, but I was too late to save the next one that died as I tried to get it to drink. It was 107 outside. They had no shade and I had waited too long to refill their waterers. I'm certain that if I'd come out an hour earlier they'd all be fine today.

Then this morning as we were reading the Bible, we were reading in Leviticus about giving offerings. It kept saying that when you sin and you don't realize it, when you do realize it you are to give such and such offering. Well, I don't feel the need to kill anymore animals to repent for killing the ducks, but I did get that even though I hadn't intended to sin, I still had. And I needed to repent.

This may sound harsh to some people who believe that God only looks at our hearts and He would have known I didn't intend evil. So often we don't want to accept responsibility for our actions. But I was happy to repent and let God forgive me. Now it's past and over. God is so good. He is so wise to realize that we need to have closure on these things. No matter how hard I might have tried to say it wasn't my fault (which this time, at least, I wasn't doing, but often do) it was. And to accept responsibility, apologize and be forgiven, and then go on feels so much better than forever trying to justify why it was okay that I took that nap before I checked on the ducks.

So anyway, I had to go to town and went by myself. This gave me time in the van ALL ALONE. I love it when that happens. So I began to talk to God. I told Him I was sorry for not listening. I was sorry for killing His ducks and wasting the meat He'd provided for us. He forgives me. I already knew that. Then I asked Him to help me to listen and respond. To help me to know when He's talking to me. And you know what? He told me, "I'm always talking to you. Just listen and believe that it's Me." Suddenly some of the stuff I'd just read to teach the youth came flooding to my mind. Of course He talks to me all the time. It's a relationship. What kind of a relationship would it be if He only talked to me when there was something big going on? How could I love a God who only gave me stuff to do? He talks to me all the time. Wow. The coolness of that really sunk in today. This great, powerful, almighty Creator who is busy running the universe ALSO talks to me. He doesn't just take time to give me orders as He manages this big universe and needs something done. He takes time to chat with me. To whisper words of love to me. He comforts me when I mess up, yet expects me to get up and keep going and face the consequences of my actions.

I understand that the enemy is also out there trying to whisper in my ear and throw me off. But I believe that if I focus on God's voice and stay tuned to that, it will help me ignore the darts of the enemy.

It's like those cartoons with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Which one will I listen to? You really can't focus in on them both. Like I always tell my kids, I have two ears, but that doesn't mean I can hear two things at once!