Words Of Encouragement To STart The Day ( Thursday 7/30/09)

Too Busy, To Notice….

Haggai 1:9 (Amplified Bible)

⁹You looked for much [harvest], and behold, it came to little; and even when you brought that home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of My house, which lies waste while you yourselves run each man to his own house [eager to build and adorn it].

I remember when the horrible Columbine Massacres took place and the news was reporting that these young men had planned most of these horrific events from their bedrooms, in their parent’s homes. I remember being someplace and hearing someone ask the question, “How is it that their parents didn’t know what is was going on right in their own homes?” At the time I did not think much of that question, I just took as conversation that was taking place in a normal course of trying to rationalize a tragedy. Recently, as our pastor began to preach on fear in Sunday morning service it seemed that I began to experience some things that brought me back to this question but not in the way you may think. I recently have had time off from work, but when I was working I was stressed with school, work, home and trying to make it church and many other obligations and things that had required my attention. I barely found my self with time to think or really time to let God deal with some issues that have plagued my life for years. But now as I had time to pray and sit still, I could hear very clearly even when I did not want to. One day last week during my prayer time I asked God to begin to expose things in me that were hindrances in my life. The first one He dealt with was the spirit of fear, (probably because our Pastor has been calling God to deal with it). He began to show me how long I had lived enslaved to fear, not just in one area of my life, but in so many different areas, I feared being rejected, I feared health challenges, I fear being abandoned, I feared people’s responses, I fear disappointing people and so many other areas (that I would be here all night listing). But if this had been a problem for so much of my life and it was such a vast entity, why had I never noticed how large it actual was. I had always realized it was there, but never to the magnitude it had become. The answer was simple but yet complex, I had become too busy taking care of people, things and business to hear God as He had try to say that this thing had become a sleeping Giant that had engulfed and devoured certain aspects of my life.

We get so inundated with living, working, and being there for everyone else we can blindly walk past elements in our lives that are eating us alive. We allow ourselves to be substantiated by a job, our ability to be in everyone’s corner, our picking up the pieces, or being the life of the part that we rarely slow down to let God deal with those boils that are festering and enslaving us. When we say we love God do we really mean it? So many of us figure a hit or miss prayer, or an occasional drive by of worship, or even us playing gospel music in our car substitutes for a good old face to face with the Father. A face to face, where He shows us who we are warts and all, where He is allowed creative licenses to rework His own creation. For many of us we would rather not we would rather keep moving a light speed, getting things done, so we do not have to hear God calling us to the alter to really become that living sacrifice. Well it is time; it is time to let God do what needs to be done to get us where He needs for us to go. It is time to slow down and let God deal with the issues that are at hand and in heart. It is time to slow down and talk to Him about truly creating in us a clean heart and renewing in us a right spirit that reflects His Ways and His attributes.