Never ceases to amaze me when a friend implies that I am on the same wavelength as our Heavenly Father. Truthfully, it is because God has to redirect me that necessitates so many of our conversations. Take, for instance, this past week.
There I was, totally convinced I knew God’s mission and message for me. I was so sure I was to share, with a young lady under the devil’s attack, that God’s peace, even in our storms, is our mainstay. In preparation for meeting with this beautiful woman of God, I sought the quiet time of a walk as dawn was breaking the day’s darkness. With my inspirational music leading me, I set out to calm my soul and seek God’s quietly leading my way. Well, let me assure you, it was not I who needed to get God’s attention. Much the opposite, God needed to get my attentiveness. To do so, He did not whisper. He full out shouted.
At the furthest point from my home, both my walk and my music were interrupted by my ringtone. Voice on the other end of my phone announced the unexpected (but definitely God Planned) had occurred. Miraculously, the custom pieces needed to remove my home’s ceramic tile and replace it with cushioned flooring had just arrived. Additionally, the master craftsman, whose skill was needed for the task, had broken his norm and worked the past weekend to finish a job, so he was available to start mine that morn, instead of the reserved date two weeks in the future. The crew would be on my doorstep within an hour.
Now, powerwalking home to beat their arrival, my clueless mind was unsettled as I tried to “think” through how I was going to still share God’s serenity when my home was about to be, literally, torn apart. My real problem was that I was searching for a worldly solution instead of “praying” for God to show my soul His will and way. Still not in contact with the wavelength of God’s desire, I deduced all was not lost. My little mentee and I would escape to my three-season room and there be immersed in nature and God’s powerful peace that infiltrates all storms.
Just as I plopped my bottom into the glider rocker in my three-season room and await my visitor’s arrival, a landscaper climbed his ladder directly across the narrow channel outside from me. With a shrill and powerful chain saw in his hand, he began trimming the palm trees. My reaction was frantic disbelief. I panicked. Finally, I sought God, instead of automatically assuming what would be His message for me to impart. Frantically, I pleaded with God as to how I could communicate His peace in the midst of my home, which had suddenly become a demolition derby.
Now, that I, at long last, committed my attention to hearing God’s voice, instead of thinking I could read His mind, God spoke to me loud and clear. His words were that He was not asking me to share His tranquility. He was telling me to relate that He was putting her life into a construction zone. She was being hammered and chiseled into the child of His that he needed her to be.
Long story short, and the moral of this story, my blessing is not that I think God’s thoughts but rather that God, through His grace, overpowers my thoughts and does whatever it takes for me to hear His message within my heart and soul. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” Psalm 32:8 (ESV)
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 