What does God have to do to get your attention? Have you heard His call? How many times has He shown you His purpose for your life? How many times have you ignored the call because of fear, lack of confidence, insecurity, or because it seems too hard? If we took the time to think about our lives, we could give countless accounts of how the hand of God has bbyeen in our midst. What happens when you no longer hear God’s voice or have you not been listening for so long that you have forgotten how His voice sounds? What happens when life knocks you down? When disappointment catches you? When your heart is betrayed? When your life goals are not met? In times of trouble do you fall into the false idea that God has deserted you? Do you allow yourself to become angry and bitter? Do you stay in a state of angst and disillusionment? Here’s a thought: how do you let go and let God?
I recently attended a women’s conference, Strength and Dignity, and the speakers gave many thought-provoking messages about the way that we respond to hurt, disappointment, lack of faith, or muddy visions. One of the messages from the speakers that struck me was the story of Michal from I Samuel. It seems that the youngest daughter of King Saul, Michal, loved his servant David. Her marriage to him was a snare for Saul to have the opportunity to murder him. “I will give her to him, … so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” (Side note: Has anyone noticed that at this point Saul is not willing to kill David because he is God’s anointed? He is going to let the Philistines do his dirty work.) But in all great stories, love wins. Michal’s love wins because she loved David enough to send him away so that her father Saul would not find him and kill him. “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.” Imagine how Michal felt sending the love of her life away to escape from the hands of her father. Over time the love that she felt in her heart turned into anger and bitterness as she watched David’s social status blossom. He married three different women, and he was revered by many. He actually seemed happy. Michal allowed her anger to fester, and that anger turned to bitterness. You can imagine how an encounter with her looked. She had wasted strength and dignity in her anger and bitterness. Because she had no relationship with God, she may have missed what God had for her. She revealed herself to be Saul’s daughter because she was not holding on to her great love for David. She was concerned with the outward appearance instead of being concerned with the inward condition of the heart. Perhaps she felt that she had missed opportunities of wealth and status as Queen. We cannot allow ourselves to succumb to anger and bitterness because we will take ourselves to a dark place where the enemy runs rampant. Suppose she had sought the word of God. Imagine how different her life outcomes could have been. (Thank you, Sister Nakia).
Much like Michal, when you find yourself in a pit, alone space, or hole, do you ask yourself how you got there? What is the purpose of being in this space? Perhaps you or maybe God has put you in a pit or holding place so that He can have your undivided attention and speak into you. Priscilla Shirer addresses this pit or place of aloneness in her study of Elijah. The study has an overarching question: “Are you willing to do what Elijah did to get what Elijah got?” Let’s think about that for a moment. “Are you willing to do what Elijah did to get what Elijah got?” In I Kings 17: 2-5, the Lord gives Elijah a directive: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of Jordon. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” So he did what the Lord had told him. Have you recognized what Elijah did? He obeyed.
Think about your life when you find yourself in a pit questioning why and how. Have you stopped to listen to God or have you allowed obstacles like life and busyness to keep you from hearing? Has God been speaking to you, calling out to you, and you’ve turned a deaf ear because He certainly can’t expect you to fulfill this call? Do you respond, “Lord I heard you, but ain’t nobody got time for that!” Do you just ignore God’s call in hopes that it will go away? Keep dreaming! If the Lord has something just for you, He will get your attention. That sometimes means putting you into a space where there are only the two of you. Throughout the Bible, we see God’s placing of people in an alone space to prepare them for the purpose for which He has called them.
Think about Elijah. God sent him away in a drought to prepare him to be the voice that spoke against sinful leaders. There was Joseph who sat in prison after being falsely accused, and he would go on to become a well-respected man of God’s goodness. Jonah was placed inside the belly of a big fish and would eventually fulfill God’s calling for him to go to Ninevah and preach to the people. There was Saul who cursed everything about Christianity only to be taken to his pit of blindness to have an encounter with God and become a well-known prophet of the Word. No greater time was spent alone than Jesus in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. All of these men had to be placed alone to commune with God, to hear His voice, to receive instruction for the calling on their lives. Have you heard from God? Where is your place to commune with Him? Are you willing to let go of some things in order to be obedient to His call? And will you answer, YES?
As one of my friends so gladly reminds me, “You can run, but you can’t hide.” We can pretend that God has not called us to fulfill His plan. We can give in to fear, insecurity, and sheer reluctance. Or we can just obey and walk in faith. What does God have to do to get your attention?
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