Are You Talking to Me?

To get the right effect, you just gotta ask the question in a real menacing mafia-fellow type voice. Go on, try it:

"Are you talkin' to me? "

Hee, hee, hee.
It was a great morning; the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, I was making great time driving along on my way to work, singing along to Israel Houghton’s wonderful worship CD, praising the Lord…and my cell phone rings.....and crazy me, I answer it! (Why did I even have the phone on during this time?) It is my old friend *Dana. We have become good friends over the years, and we know each other pretty well. I assume she has something on her mind, since she called me first thing in the morning.

After the pleasantries, there are pauses in the conversation. So while I am waiting for her to launch into whatever is on her mind, I fill in the gaps of conversation with just trivial stuff to ease her into whatever it is she really wants to talk about. And guess what? I can tell that she’s not listening to me at all. I hear her television blaring in the background, and I am becoming a little miffed. “So what’s up?” I ask her. “I know you are not listening to me. What’s on your mind?” She then comes to life and says, “Oh nothing! I called just to say 'Good Morning!' I admit that I am a bit distracted, shuffling through my papers, and straightening up a little right now.”

Well, excuuuuse, me! At this point I am selfishly thinking, “Oh-no she did-ent!” She did not interrupt my praise party to call me so I could have the pleasure of listening to her breathe on the phone! Before I knew it, I blurted out, “Look, woman! I am like God, in that when you and I talk, I want ALL of your attention.” Whoa! That’s heavy, I thought, after I said it. Of course, she laughed, and brushed it off. But I really was slightly jealous and annoyed that whatever she was doing, took her attention away from me…after all, she did call to talk to me, right? But I chose to let part of my morning devotions be interrupted by answering my phone, which then made me very annoyed with myself. The conversation ended very shortly thereafter.

Suddenly the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "When you answered your phone, you did the EXACT same thing to Me that you accused her of doing to you." Oh, my. Right backatcha! Ouch!

I allowed myself to be distracted by my phone, taking my focus off of God, interrupting part of my morning devotional time with Him just to answer the cotton-pickin' phone! How could I?

Think about this: Try to place yourself in our Heavenly Father’s position for just one minute, watching over our lives, seeing and listening. Think of how we sometimes pray distractedly. How many times we half read the scriptures, not even trying to seek understanding? We may have even offered worship and praise to Him half heartedly in a ritualistic mode on Sundays. We might even absentmindedly go through the motions of the service in a disconnected sort of way, thinking about dinner preparations or the game coming on later. If you are guilty of this behavior in the past, there is no reason to beat yourself up over it now.

When we condemn ourselves for those things I've listed above in addition to other things not listed, I think it's because we've forgotten or don't understand the concept that our total lifestyles are supposed to be our worship, our service, our praise offering to Him. Not just the worship service. Not just our devotional time. It's not what we do for Him...it's who we are and who we are becoming in Him. I imagine how that must grieve His heart, the way He loves us...only to get our leftovers at times, or broken, fragmented pieces of our selves, mainly because we misunderstand the concept of worship. How about the agony He may feel watching us continously beat ourselves up in defeat over past mistakes or misunderstandings when we do finally gain an understanding of the truth.

I am so glad that He is so full of love for us, and is merciful and just, seeing our hearts. He knows that I did not mean any disrespect or irreverance towards Him when I answered my phone in the middle of part of my morning devotions. I just lost my everloving mind for the moment and allowed myself to become distracted. But He knows me, loves me, understands me, sees my repentant heart and forgives me in spite of myself. How could I not want to give my all to Someone who loves me so completely and unconditionally like that?

Lord, I thank you for the lessons learned in this one little episode in my life. There were several:
(in no particular order)

1. Tolerance
2. Patience/Mercy
3. Wisdom
4. Understanding
5. True worship
6. Total Focus vs. Distractions
7. Forgiveness
8. Repentance
9. Love
10. Teachability

What a wonderful God we serve.

"For in Him, we live and move and have our being..." Acts 17:28.

\0/

*The name has been changed, to protect the guilty. ;-)