I just hung up from talking with my husband. He called me from Africa on his cell phone. It wasn’t a very satisfying conversation. We couldn’t hear each other a lot of the time and even had to hang up and try again a couple of minutes into the first attempt. Then the second time we got cut off. Then when he tried again for the third time he still couldn’t make out what I was saying. We finally agreed to hang up and try again another time. I’m thankful he is usually here so we can talk more easily!
It’s a good thing we don’t have to depend on cell phones to talk to God.
Then again, God may think differently about that. He has to depend on us.
Our "self-phones" don’t always work very well. At least mine doesn’t. I don’t always hear when he "rings" for one thing.
So he has to wait for me to "ring" him. When I do I don’t always stay on the "phone" very long—just long enough to say what I want to say, then "hang up" as soon as I’m done talking because I assume that he doesn’t have anything to say to me. At least I don’t wait to find out.
I know a lady who actually stops and asks God what he wants to say to her and then she even waits and listens to see what he says.
She encouraged me to try that too. I tried a couple of times. But mostly I don’t think of it. Now that I think of it, I would like to try that again.
Frequently I get distracted and wander off and do something else in the middle of the conversation and leave Him hanging. At least my thoughts wander off, which is about the same thing.
I’m so glad God is patient.
But two-way communication is essential in a relationship. So why don’t I try harder to talk and listen in my relationship with God?
I suspect I still mainly see him as a disapproving task master. I am trying to get free from that image. But lately I am realizing how little I know about how to relate to him as anything else but that. I don’t really fully grasp that he wants a relationship with me for anything but to tell me the next task or to tell me how I am messing up. In fact that is one reason I hesitate to ask him what he wants to say to me. I assume it will be negative and heavy. That I won’t be able to handle it and then I will get “in trouble” for messing up.
Galatians 4 really grabbed me this week from my ladies small group study. It says that I am no longer a slave, I am God’s child. That is why he redeemed me!
So why do I think and act like I am a slave sometimes?
I could point to various reasons. Conditional, seeming, love from parents and wrong teaching from other Christians come to mind as contributing factors.
But bottom line, the basic reason, I believe, is that I have an enemy who wants me to stay in bondage. Satan doesn’t want me to understand or experience what it means to be God’s child.
Jesus said if we know the truth it will set us free. I believe that the more I learn and stand on the truth of Scripture the more I will be able to walk in the freedom Christ purchased for me on the cross.
Galatians 4:6 says that because I am God’s child, he “sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child.”
“Abba” is like a little child calling her father, “Dada.” A friend once said she didn’t want to call God “Abba” because she thought it was disrespectful. But it is no more disrespectful than a little child calling her father “Dada.” In fact that is what we are meant to be, a little child calling out to our loving Heavenly Father because we love and trust him and want to be with him.
As adults we usually carry baggage because of the ways our earthly fathers failed us. But the little child who calls “Dada” doesn’t have that baggage yet. She doesn’t know how frail her earthly father is. She trusts him completely. We have a Heavenly Father who will never fail us. He is not frail or fallible. We must set aside the baggage from the past and become as little children again with our Heavenly Father.
No comments:
Post a Comment