I encourage my children to use their imagination, to make things new and fresh, to look at something with a different perspective. Kids do this instinctively. It might be because they don’t know to associate red with apples or green with grass, but they will color whatever whatever color. And I applaud their imagination. I’ll even envy it. I strain my brain to create something new in it, to recolor something with a new color.

I go to the movies with a desire to see something amazing. Blow my mind, please, I just paid out the nose for you to do so. Usually, I’m not disappointed. Wild places in Middle Earth, the nose dive of the Train to the North Pole, the endless expanse of the universe with Chewy, Daniel Craig (what?). These things come to life on the screen, reaching for our senses, wooing us to believe there is more than we can possibly see right now! Imagination come to life on a giant screen!

Give me more! Show me more! Color that apple a different color! Make it purple!

Wait

Isn’t it already red? Is there not a wonder to the fact that the apple is already colored? And it’s red? Or yellow? Or green? Or pink? Or pink and yellow with kiss of red? Or pink and green, which hands down is the best color combo? Does this fail to cause us to wonder? Have I become so accustomed to the fact that I can simply walk into my store and purchase an apple and I have forgotten that the miracle is that I walked, much less that I feel the skin of the apple and experience it’s texture? Do I even consider that over time it grew on the end of a branch of a tree that was once a tiny seed planted in the dirt my the hand of a tree person? (Well, not a tree person, a person who tends trees. Tree persons are in Lord of the Rings.)

That tiny seed produced an apple! And I want to recolor it! Why? Why not marvel at the wonder of the red apple? Has it become so common? Has what God created for us to find pleasure in become common and we seek a new version of the original miracle?

What else has become so common that we scan our little universes for something new? Has hand-holding become common? Or the Bible? Or a giggle? Or the leaf on a tree? Or carpet? What about the wonder of how a human looks? That we have hair and blink? What about the miracle of breathing? You are breathing right now! Alive! Don’t miss it! There is no Hollywood movie that can touch the miracle of the lungs doing their thing while we whine and complain that we are less than spectacular.

I find I do this to myself as well. I forget, that unlike the apple, I am the only one of me. If I stop and simply look at my hands, I could marvel that they type right now, connected to my brain. They have tiny nerve endings that feel heat, cold, tears, soft, fur, pain. I look in the mirror and take inventory of what is needing help. I find ways to seek a new version of the original miracle. Ah, there is the problem. Just like the apple, I have become common to myself. I have lost the wonder that I am even looking at myself in the mirror. I am not struck by the fact that the eyes see me are a scientific mystery, but rather I’m struck that those eyes have some dark circles under them.  I have become the common, red apple.

Let us return then to this: the apple is red. Think on that for a few minutes. Try to free yourself from the “yeah, so?” mentality of the common red apple and consider that by no force of man or beast, the apple is red. It is because God created it to be so. It is because he found pleasure in the color red on that particular fruit. Then changed it up on a different one. Then added a different shading and flavor. Then said, “Eat! Enjoy! Live! Glory!” And I dare shrug at the red apple wishing it were purple. God, deliver me from common.

Next time we stand in front of the mirror wishing for new version of the original miracle, let us look into our own eyes and reject the notion that we are anything less than miraculous. There is wonder in the simple fact that you..are you. You and I cannot create a new miracle or expand on the original. The original is miraculous and beautiful and anything but common. 

We are the red apple. And what is even more, the red apple was given that we would applause the Maker of even such a small wonder. The apple, a delight to God to make and color, how much more does He delight in that which he created called… man.

Wonder
Marvel
Be delighted in such a God, the creator of the miraculous.

yeah

I had this one after the first one 17 months later. Witty, caring, bright, faithful.

Just kill me now.

And 7 years later…

adorable.
Two years later I had this handsome cuss. Wanna see? Good.
Good gracious, my heart.

This span of kids is quite remarkable. One minute I’m all, “Well, you have to find the greatest common factor and multiply it by the blah blah blah I-don’t-remember-this-from-school,” to “Hey little buddy, did you go poo-poo? Need mommy to change your diaper again-and-wonder-if-there-will-ever-come-a-day-you-use-the-potty?”

Remarkably, I somehow manage to keep up even though I really feel like the dust in places could pull itself together and kill me in my sleep. It’s uncanny how much dust is kicked up when six people are in the same house together (however, I hear it’s not dust…it’s skin…I’ll keep it as dust, if you don’t mind). So, what do I do? I ignore it, or brush it off with my hand followed by a swift swipe down the jeans. There. Clean.

Sometimes I do math. Like the kind of math where you think, “How old will I be when…” and then you pick something. For instance, “How old will I be when we get to go through another awesome election? 43. Awesome. Or, “How old will I be when I actually shed this unwanted weight?” ummm, let’s continue. “How old will I be when Piper can drive?” 41. Perfect. And, “How old will I be when Pierce is 18 and can leave the house” 39 + 16 = WHAT THE???? 55? FIFTY-FIVE?  I can hardly wrap my brain around that. I mean, seriously, who turns 55?

wait

Still, you know that feeling that you are a certain age when you really are a lot older than that? Like, I’m 39 and feeeeel like I’m about 24. That feeling that causes you to consistently grab clothes that are too small of the rack because somewhere in the recesses of your brain you think you are still the size you were in 1997? Someone give me a dose of reality, but make sure it has vodka in it.

Will at 55 I feeeeel like I’m 24, or does it move up? Like at 55 I’ll feel like I did at the spunky age of 40? What will happen these next 16 years? Who knows, and I don’t want to think about it because I can get myself all worked up and skeered and I need to just focus on the fact that I’m kissing 40 and I have four kids and they are awesome. Someday, that young baby face of a boy will leave me and my 55 year old heart will do one of two things: break in a thousand pieces, or dance into a thousands jigs?

Can I do both? Please?

 

As much as I love my country, what it stands for, what it is, there are cultural things in this land of milk and honey that have been ingrained in me as much as my love for fireworks, parades, Christmas pageants, and Coca-Cola. This is something that is so normal for Americans to think about that we don’t think that it’s literally sucking the ever-loving life out of our Christian belief system. We don’t see that what our country has taught us is in direct opposition to the Word of God, but it “feels” right and that it goes right along with it.

What is it, you ask?

In a few phrases?

If you believe it, you can achieve it.
You can be anything you want to be.
You are an individual!
You have the ability to become what ever you want to become.
You can make it to the top.
The Land of Opportunity awaits you, all you have to do is go!

Wait, wait, wait. Those phrases are NOT bad. Indeed, they are not.

My issues (and let’s me clear, these are my issues) are not so much with the wonderful ideals of individualism, for God created us all different. Nor that hard work coupled with a dream isn’t amazing to watch. The Scripture is clear on hard work and seeing things come to fruition that stun us. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be amazing men and women and forge through opportunities. And I’m not saying we sit idly by and let the world happen around us.

What I am saying is that I find it interesting that in my life, and others around me, that we take the ideals of Americans and try to mesh them with what we find in the Word of God. They don’t always mix. Too often, American dreams and the Word of God are like oil and water. For instance, we as Americans have made it clear that you work for what you get. Yes, if you want to make a lot of money, have a good job and a good name, you work your ever-lovin’ butt off to make that happen. Make good grades in college, do the work, make the hours, kiss the butts, stay up late, stress about the ideas and plans, work, work, work…and then your dream will come.

Does anyone really like this plan?

Me either. It’s exhausting, yet we perpetuate it. We stress about our children and their education. We wonder if they will know enough monkey dances to get the right job. Ok, I’ll stop. What does this have to do with our attempts to make this work with what God said? I’ll show you.

Our American belief system that “you get what you beat your brains in for” doesn’t work with God and his blessings. Yes, yes, we all “know” that, but how many of us can really divorce the concept in our culture with the truth in the Word of God? How many of us really know how to “rest in Christ”? How many of us really think there is nothing we do for his love and approval when our entire American existence is about approval? How many of us really think that he isn’t watching for the most awesome, most creative, most witty and/or sharp? How many of us wonder if we aren’t experiencing what “everyone else” is because there is something in us that doesn’t measure up?

Me too.

That’s us as an American (or human) talking. If “me” the follower of Christ was talking (and dictating my thought life) my perspective would shift entirely. There would be no oil and water. It would just be oil… or water. (which ever you like better, they’re both biblical)

I am the righteousness of God.
I have purpose and position.
I am wonderfully made.
I am loved.
I am heard.
I am strong because of him.

These are powerful and true, but when we try to take the “I can do it!” spirit of being an American and lay that over the truth that we are nothing without Christ, we get this false sense that we have to do or be something in Christ in order for the “I can do all things in Christ” to actually work. Twisted, huh?

American Ideal + Biblical Truth = Exhaustion.

We still think that, although we hang on that verse, “I can do all things in Christ” we should do all the doing. Am I right or am I right? We are a Do! Do! Do! and Go! Go! Go! society so much that I have forgotten how to stop. stop. stop. and be still. still. still.

Stop.

Be still.

And I’m not talking about stopping from being busy. I’m talking about stopping from trying to make yourself the Christian you ought to be all by your onesie (I’m really speaking to myself but to use “you” is much easier).

If you call yourself a Christ follower, you can’t do anything without him. You can’t be all you can be without him. You can’t accomplish all you want to without him. You can’t become the man or woman you want to be without him. My American dreams pale in light of, and fall completely short of, the wonders of the Word of God. To remove my American upbringing would be like trying to separate that oil and water. It would take a miracle. And that miracle, is Jesus.

He can take what feels right and true, expose it and make me walk in righteousness and truth. He can take the oil of my false ideas of popularity, success, and prosperity, and give me the oil of gladness. He will remove from the my striving and flailing for strength and “winning” and give me his strength, his purpose, his power.

He will make me the individual he created me to be.
He will see to it that all I have put my hand to because of him will be accomplished.
He will produce in me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.
He will give me the strength I need.
He will create in me himself.  
His dreams will become my dreams.

As much as I love being an American, that cannot be my identity. As much as I love the Red, White and Blue, I must love the Red that flowed on the Cross even more. As much as I love my country, my true country is yet to come. That is the Country I turn to to find myself, my calling, my identity. It is his country, his Kingdom and I choose to seek it first.

“But seek first the Kingdom of God…” Jesus.

But, feels like it’s the right thing to strive for when things get crazy. I lose footing and scramble to make it up.

The last 2.5 years have been very hard. Not like, I’m-being-persecuted-hard, but more like My-life-has-changed-more-times-than-my-hair-color hard. It started with our decision to leave the church we loved, start a business and try something new. Followed up with our son having a terrible allergic reaction to eggs and hazelnuts on the same day. Soon after that I was packing up the home where we had lived for 11 years, brought two babies to and left with two more. Move to Nashville, freak out, get in over our heads in an apartment, sell said house, move to the country (where it’s beautiful, by the way) and here I am.

Exhausted. Irritable. Dissatisfied.

Bad me. I know Jesus, for cryin’ out loud! I KNOW the truth. Yet, I am whipped and beaten and then whip and beat myself for not pulling up my big girl panties and “live for Jesus” no matter what.

It’s too much. And it came to head. The beautiful thing is that the wisdom of God’s love and grace came to me through my husband. He has watched me grow more and more tired, more and more irritated with myself and finally, with God. JT said that if he felt as distant from God as I do, he would be tired and irritated too. He’s right. Trying to “find God” in this is well, freaking stupid.

There is no “finding God” for me because I don’t have to look any further than my own breathing. Pssh, Sunday School answers. What’s wrong with me? I’ll tell you. I’ve lost my Kindergarten understanding of love and grace. I’ve mucked (go ahead, replace that “m” with an “f”) it up to the point that I figure I need to straighten up and do all things right in order for God to give me a new directive here in Nashville. New orders please, Sir!

What I have to come back to is that God isn’t in the business of barking out orders to a tired and weary woman who just turned 39 and is a bit overwhelmed with the fact there she is but a few moons away from being 40. I digress.

In fact, it’s the opposite of barking out orders. Jesus said, “Come to me, you who are weary and burdened and I will give your rest.” But, but…. I KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS. I know I’m supposed to have a passion and love the unlovely and give to the poor and feed the hungry and spend myself on behalf of others and raise my kids, and support my church, and, and, and…..

Come to me all who are weary and burdened…

I am weary and burdened with my own running and trying and whatever. Give me the basics again, Lord. Teach me new of grace and hope and love. Teach me again the awe of the cross and the wonder of the resurrection. Brighten my eyes at the sight of the manger scene. Astound me with your love because I simply can’t muster it up inside. Isn’t that the truth? I can’t muster up in me something that comes only from Jesus: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,…..

I can’t.

You can’t.

So, it brings me to the end of myself. I drop my arms in surrender only because I can’t lift them anymore to pretend I have it all together. My known Sunday school answers although true, cannot be made new in me on my own, or in my own, power. So, on a walk in the hills of Tennessee I asked for new start. A redo. Overs. I asked Him to do all that I can’t, which is…. everything.

It’s all grace. And I want it back. I want to be simple in mind and pure in heart. I want this to ring in my mind and heart until it’s all I know:

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
The Bible tells me so

I know.

Sick.

But, let’s be honest, the show Wipeout is designed for people like me. I honestly can’t imagine that there might be people out there who do not think Wipeout is funny. I can’t imagine the gaping whole in your non-funny heart, or the lack of the funny bone (where ever it may be. I guard mine against sadness and depression just so it won’t shrivel and die.) (Then where would I be?) (Sad and depressed, I suppose.)

What a joy it would be for me to be sitting, say, in an airport and someone were to walk by and fall down. Of course, I would open my mouth aghast and say something like, “Are you okay?!” Whilst trying my darndest to not laugh. (Is darndest a word?) That would be a grand day. A day I would ride the sky with a mini-movie in my head of someone falling down. Oh the scene. Oh the hilarity.

Perhaps had you seen me the other day maybe you’d be more like me. I was out walking, exercizing like a good person, when I spotted a little dog sitting so cute looking the same direction I was so he didn’t see me coming. As I approached his left side, he saw me and did a huff bark trying to show me he was so tough. His owner was out so, of course being an extrovert, I say, “Oh, he’s so tough.” We laugh and I took about 2 more steps when bam!, rolled my right foot in a hole in the street and down I went. I scraped up my left knee bad and felt the adrenaline rush of “what the heck just happened” rush through me.

Am I okay? Did I break anything? Dang it! I broke my iPhone glass even more!

The neighbor stops to see if I’m okay as he holds a giant plastic bumper I can only assume he was going to put on his truck. He asks me about my ankle and I gave him the “just a minute” finger. Yes. Yes, I think I’m fine. I walked home and my kids were angels. Ice and ibuprofen and a pillow. I had my chance that day to watch movies all day and I didn’t take it.

dang

Three or four days of a little swollen ankle and a very tender knee and I’m getting better. I just think that had to look hilarious. Me falling down after talking to a man about his dog. Come on. That’s funny!

What’s not funny is when someone falls in their faith. What’s not funny is to talk about them behind their backs about all their bad choices and holes in the road they tripped on.

Not funny. Not godly.

When someone we love falls in their faith it is not the time to air it on Supernatural Wipeout. That is the time we stop, help them up, brush off their knees and hold them as they walk back to where they can rest. We help them manage their next few steps so that they won’t find themselves back on the ground after being distracted by sin again. They need us to help them, not judge or mock them. Without healing and without each other we cannot fulfill our destinies that God has given us.

Laugh at Wipeout. Pray for those who trip in their faith.

Do you know anyone who needs you to help them recover?

If you’re thinking, “Hey, I wonder if I’m a Sender,” maybe some of this will resonate with you.

For example, every time I spoke at a church or taught a class, I instinctively wanted to get to a point in my message where I talked to my audience about their part in God’s story. Somehow, regardless of the theme of the night with chicken and rice and delicious salads, I nailed the point that we are all a part of this amazing, radical and world changing thing the Bible calls the Great Commission. That part of my message would be the point my whole spirit, mind and body would come to life. Those moments where when I felt like I was firing on all cylinders and that God was speaking directly through me. I desperately wanted them to know they are valuable to His work. If you look around at the Church and think, “I can totally encourage her to go out there and kick booty”, then you might be a Sender.

Something else that may mark a person as a Sender is that they don’t every really land on a particular mission, organization, or group. All seem equal in their importance. All are deeply loved by a Sender because not only is the purpose of that mission or organization important, but the people who run it strike a chord deep in the Sender, thus making all missions valuable. A Sender sends those to what they are called to do. (However, as a Sender you might be called to one person or group. If so, just go with it!)

Senders are usually concerned for the well-being of a missionary, pastor, or group leader more than the outcomes of their mission/church. When I think of my international missionary friends, pastor’s, pastor’s wives, organization leaders, my first thought isn’t about their outcomes, their numbers, their goals. My first thought is, “I wonder how they are doing. How is their relationship with God? What do they need?”

From the Perspectives course book here are some other things that may mark a Sender:

• Live very normal lives.
• Have a heart that yearns for people they have never seen.
• Work very hard to love and make connections with people they may only see once every 4-5 years.
• Noted for zeal to make disciples where ever they are.
• Caught up in a war that many of their friends and family may not or will not acknowledge.
• They give away up to half of what they earn.
• Their lives are simple.
• They speak often of distant people.
• They relish extended times of prayer.
• There is a joyous detachment yet and earnest involvement in the affairs of the world.
• Senders serve with a singe-hearted joy: the joy of laying down their lives so that other’s obedience will be abundant.

Maybe you’re a Sender. Maybe you’re like me and when you think of the throne room of heaven, you’d gladly take a stool in the back, in the nose-bleed section, looking down at the Throne of Grace and applaud (while crying and snotting up your new duds) those coming in who faithfully laid it all on the line for the One they loved.

They deserve the front row… and back stage passes.

(sidebar: I’m sure those gifts and talents will be a part of my life still, but they will be a catalyst to what I’m about to explain. Ok, on we go.)

In 2002, JT suggested I take the Perspectives course on the Christian Movement. Like a loving wife and faithful woman of God, I didn’t go. Why? Because who wants to hear about what a low-life they are because they don’t want to go out on the mission field? Who wants their heart changed and have to move to some remote village void of toilets and light switches? Not. Me. So I didn’t go to Perspectives until two years after JT.

What I found was quite the contrary. God didn’t whisper to me “Gooooo! GOOOOO!”

Something else happened. He said, “Stay. Send.”

Fast forward eight years later, a lot of wrestling, a lot of trying to find my place to land and call my passion, I finally get it.

I am a Sender

Like my parents before me and their parents before them, I was created to love the Body, uplift her, encourage her, teach her, send her on her way, and care for her as she lives out her purpose.

Even typing that my heart beats a little faster. Unlike saying I’m a speaker or teacher, saying I’m a Sender resonates so deeply I’d dare say it is supernatural. It makes sense to me in ways I can’t fully explain in English. I’d try Spanish but then I’d just be making a fool of myself, but many of you would be like, “Yes! She got her prayer language!” (Some of you would be like, “Wait. I think she’s trying to communicate, I just know it.”)

Now when people ask me what my passion is I can truly and deeply and with all my heart, without a shadow of a doubt, from the very soul of who I am, say, “I…am a Sender.”

(Tomorrow: What the Heck is a Sender, really?)

In that fascinating house I met even more fascinating people called missionaries. One man brought back tales from across the seas, and with him real snakes that intrigued and captured my child’s mind. Exotic. Wild. I had no idea where he lived or what he did, but he stayed at my Grandparents house and they loved him, so I loved him. He took me to Jr. High one day in torrential rain on his way back to the church after breakfast with my parents. Who does that? I told him where to turn and where to drop me off. I thanked him, ran in, and had no idea that would be the last time I would see him.

Another lady was an American living in the far off place called the Philippines. She had dashing red hair, colorful clothes and long red fingernails. Something about her made me want to be wild and live somewhere else. She sat on the stairs at my grandparents and I watched as she laughed with my mom and hugged her like old friends.

She too stayed with my Grandparents.

My Grandparents, Harold and Eugenia Short, lovers of Jesus, lovers of missionaries. Their home, a safe place. Their money, given freely. Their time, available. They were Senders, though I hardly think they knew that’s what they would be called. They “sent” the ones called to “go” and they did it well.

Their son, Glenn, and his wife, Jolene, my parents, are Senders. Again, I doubt they know that’s their title in the Great Commission, but that’s what they are. They too have the gift of giving money to whomever needs it. They have housed missionaries, spent time and money on those they love who have chosen to Go. They’ve heard the stories, stuffed the check in the envelope and hugged their friends on furlough.

One friend, Don, was murdered in his own front yard.

I’ll never forget the day I heard. The man who had driven me to Jr. High that rainy morning was slaughtered by the very people he went to love. By that time I was in high school. I was at my home church doing something there on a weekday, making copies for who knows what when my pastor came in and told me the news. I sat on a nearby stool and stared off a bit. Even though I had barely met the man a few years back, his story, his life touched me deeply. I went into the sanctuary alone. It was dark except for the sun cutting through behind the green shade of the stained-glass window above the stage. I walked to the front row, looked at the stage, and wept.

To comprehend what had happened as a white, middle-class girl in the middle of a country was near impossible. All I knew was this man was murdered. My heart broke into a thousand pieces. He smiled and laughed and hung out with my Grandparents and parents. Who would want to kill him?

“..he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.”

I didn’t learn what the term “Sender” meant until 2004 when I took the Perspectives course. Undoubtedly the most amazing course on the history of the Christian movement. Things began to click inside of me. I loved missionaries, but had no idea how to help. I prayed for them, even wrote a prayer journal for those Stateside to pray through.

What did it mean to be called a Sender? I had no idea. It didn’t strike me until a few days ago that I’m a 3rd generation Sender. What wild things will God have for me? But, I get ahead of myself. Recognizing the historical significance of this is astounding, to say the least, but looking back at all the things leading up to just the last few days is only God.

Being a Sender is in my blood…and from His.

I read this and was stopped in my tracks. Jeremiah 22:16

“Is that not what it means to know me?” What? Where did that come from? How have in my 30+ years of following Jesus did I not see this before? Too consumed with Jeremiah 29:11 just a few chapters to the right, maybe?

I went through my Bible looking up Scripture that had to do with the poor, oppressed, widowed, orphaned and can I just tell you how ashamed I was (am) that most of them we not underlined. You see, I like to underline. Everything that is awesome and wonderful about the Word of God that inspires me and changes me and makes me feel amazing about being a Christ follower gets an underline.

Most of the passages I read concerning “the least of these” are naked in my Bible.

Naked and overlooked. 

Much like the people themselves. I am stooped low over this.

But, you see, I KNOW God! He’s changed me, He’s saved me, He’s loved me and kept me from falling to pieces. He’s blessed me and given me more than I can imagine!! Yes, all this is true, but in light of that verse…..

do I not know Him?

I’m wrestling with this. Don’t you know I know you Jesus? I know your voice. I know your heart. I know your breath. I swear I know you!

What I’ve come to begin to see, what I’ve come to begin to swallow is this:

What I do not know is his brokenness. 

I recently thought,

When you start praying like this, things start shifting. You start looking at life differently. The car we drive, the food we eat, the clothes we wear. They start to diminish, make you feel a little sick. They make me look down at my hands and wonder, “Who are you really serving?”

What are we doing? What am I doing? What am I not doing?

It’s time for those passages in my Bible that have nothing to do with me and everything to do with them to start having hard lines underneath them. Not only that, but I have to ask myself, “Will those lines move me to action, or will they simply be an underlined thought?” Will I pride myself in more pen in my Bible or will I risk having love and blood on my hands?

Will I risk more?

Will I give more so that someone else might live? Will I dare to run the risk of looking like a foolish American, giving up the “American Dream” so that someone else may have a chance to dream at all? Will I do things that make us less comfortable (which might mean, what? that we have to give up a meal out?)? Am I willing to even abandon what I think might be the road to “my” dreams so that I can see more clearly His road to His dream?

I think the answer to all of these must be Yes. If it’s not yes, then what am I doing? Who am I serving? Who do I really know?

This is messy right now. Please hold for more underlined passages, or more messy wanderings around what I call comfortable. It’s not so comfortable now, but then again, He never said it would be.

“Mom.”

“Mom?”

“Mom!”

“MOM!!”

Usually when this happens I am reading a book, typing on some sort of computer gadget or watching TV. Something happens to my ears when I am engaged in an activity that requires even the slightest amount of focus. The electrical things that go from my ears to my brain to say, “Hey, someone is talking to you and it’s your kid.” is somehow shut off.

 I can hear them. I can. I just can’t seem to get my body to turn and look at them. It’s like they are far away in some other room, in some other house, calling from the other side of the world. I hear you child! I really do. I think you’re trying to communicate! Hang on child! I’ll be there in juuuuust a minute.

One kid could come in and tell me an entire story only to have me look at them and say, “What honey?” The eye rolls. The starting over. The sighs and huffs because they thought they had my attention. Honestly, the should know by now that when my face is down, illuminated by the tiny screen of my phone, I can’t hear them.

I have learned, however, that I need to physically disengage my eyes from whatever I’m doing, turn and look at them, then I can hear them. Listening is so much more than using your ears.

Many people have asked me, “How do I hear the voice of God.”

Well, it’s simple…

listen

Not simple? Why isn’t it? Why is it that we are promised the very essence of God lives in us, that we can have the mind of Christ, and know the will of God, and yet hearing his voice eludes us, escapes us, tempts us?

What’s the problem? Is it that he isn’t speaking, or we aren’t listening? And it’s not just closing your eyes, letting out a sigh, leaning your head back, and waiting while the dang cricket chirps in the corner of your mind.

I know when MY kids are talking to me. In a crowd of hundreds, I can pick out their voice. Why? I’m with them all the time. I know them. I understand them. I spend time with them.

Jesus said that his sheep (us) know his voice and he knows them. The only way to know a voice, to know who that is on the phone when you pick it up (before caller ID), to know who is behind you when someone says your name, is to spend time with them.

No other way to know if you are hearing the voice of God or not, but to spend time with him daily, hourly, minutely, secondly… well, not secondly, firstly, but you get the point. Disengage from the distractions, engage in the relationship. 

Before you ask, “How can I know when I hear the voice of God,” ask yourself, “How much time to I spend with God I want to hear?”

Listen.