I was at a doctor’s appointment one time (go figure) and after the nurse took my blood pressure and pulse, she said, “Wow, do you run? Your resting heart rate is that of a marathon runner.” Now, now, one naturally would assume that I am a runner… I said to her (with a kind type of sarcasm) “Do I look like a runner?”. Whoooeeee, what a great laugh we had that day. I actually was a runner in my early 30’s. I remember running in the Denver snowstorms. It may sound awful, but, man was it awesome! I actually enjoyed running. Now I kind of lean toward the cute little phrase someone came up with: Yeah, I’m a runner – only when I’m being chased! That’s my take on running.
Okay, so listen to this… I sat down Saturday morning ready to write, coffee in hand, a dog perched next to me, my Bible, and I was ready for some blogging. The blog site wouldn’t load. What? I tried everything and kept what I will call, dinking around, with my limited technical capabilities, trying to find a solution to this nonsense! After a long while, I finally said, okay Lord, I can take direction here, I am gonna go with you on this one and take a day off, and Sunday too.
Sunday evening rolls around and I tried again to get on the blog site – I know! I said I was taking Sunday off – I’m only human, folks. Anyway, I still had no luck! I had been troubleshooting for close to two hours when something happened and I actually “fixed” it!! Well, kind of. For now anyway.
Getting to my point here – how do you interpret hearing from God? I can tell you of a few times when I just knew that I knew that I knew, that I had heard from God and was to pursue what it was that I was to pursue. The end results didn’t line up with what I truly thought it was that I had heard from God. Talk about being confused. I remember being so sad this one particular time, because I couldn’t understand how I so misunderstood what I believed He had spoken to me (as in, spoke to my heart and led me in a certain direction). It didn’t make sense and my feelings were kind of hurt, to be honest.
Here’s the conclusion I have drawn from these times… It’s all about obedience. Sometimes it’s as simple (or not as simple) as that. When we hear what we want to hear or whether we hear what we don’t want to hear, acting out of obedience to God makes us shine like the noonday sun. We don’t have to understand things, we just need to listen. And you know what the best part is? In Heaven we won’t even care about the answers to these earthly questions. It. Just. Won’t. Matter. Well, except that whole parting the sea thing, and also, well, feeding 5000 and then there’s Lazarus – where did he even go? Okay, so there will be some things that will be super cool to have answers to. Our little stuff, probably not so much.
Obedience at times may hurt your feelings, it might be the grit-your-teeth type or even the run-the-distance type. The outcome doesn’t always have to be our focus and in actuality, the outcome may not even make sense. Listening however, always will.
He said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God, and obey it.” – Luke 11:28 NIV
Can't it all be about dogs? 