Sunday, September 14, 2014

30 Seconds

Last week God decided to speak to me through my new (to me) motto.

Let me lay out the scene for you.
I was meeting a friend at the coffee shop around the corner from my apartment. The parking lot was uphill and it was raining. Rainy season here is definitely a new experience for me. I'm learning how to drive my motto but doing so most days through a foot or more of water. A foot or more of snow I'm used to in New York but murky sewage water- not so much.  Often times I'm left in traffic for an hour with my engine smoking under water, breaks squealing and Cambodians laughing at my attempt at balancing it all.

But today was different, I was pulling out of the uphill parking lot with minimal water under me and I am starting to shift into the next gear so I can hightail it out of the lot to find a spot in traffic just big enough to fit my motto. But my motto decided to get stuck in the gear it was in and then after 30 seconds of trying to figure out why I'm not moving it clicks into gear, jolts forward, and off of the motto I fly. Somehow I grasp my bearings when I'm laying on the ground a little bloody with my motto sitting on top of me.

I was frustrated and left there laying waiting for someone to pick the motto up off of me. It was one of those moments that lasted only seconds but felt like much longer as God started speaking to me on the dirty pavement.
Why not listen to God when your pinned to the pavement with nowhere to go?
He started speaking to me about trying to control the timing of of how I respond to His voice. I usually hear Him loud and clear when He's speaking to me but often take my sweet old time processing it, weighing the options, doubting at times, then choosing to obey.

But God that sounds crazy.
No one will believe you told me that, Father.
But that requires me to give up a lot.
Just give me some time to think it over.

Those are sometimes the thoughts running through my head when He speaks. Just like the motto, God gives me a command to shift gears and move, but when I take my sweet old time to respond it can lead to destruction and frustration that never needed to happen.

During the creation of the world, God spoke and creation responded with action. He spoke the light and there was light. He spoke the waters and lands, and they were made. He breathed life into Adam and He was alive. There bible doesn't say God spoke and creation thought about it for awhile first,  then decided to obey. It just was because God spoke it.

I want the gap between His voice and my response of action to be closed. To turn off my brain and respond in the Spirit to my Creator speaking to me. I've always had a bottom line of, 'hey at least I'm always obedient in the end'. And that's true I am, but that's not enough. When God shifts gears and accelerates, my heart needs to be in a position to accelerate with Him. My even 30 second delay can end in destruction, because He is taking me into a new level of obedience with Him. Gods graces are covering me completely, but it's time to step up my game.

I'm choosing to close the gap of letting doubts and emotions stir into what Gods speaking. I challenge you to do the same. What does it look like to let God accelerate you forward and speak to you without a gap before you respond to the Creators voice?

Oh, and my motto and I are doing fine and still taking on the rainy season of Phnom Penh one day at a time :) 

Followers