Friday, January 16, 2009

Altering Our Hearing

Today I want to share from my devotional, "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. I love this little book, because it leaves room to journal in the margins, and with each year, I see the different things I've written down that I want the Lord to do or change in my life.
Today's entry is about "The Voice of the Nature of God". In his opening statement, Chambers says, " When we speak of the call of God, we are apt to forget the most important feature, viz., the nature of The One who calls. The call is the expression of the nature from which it comes, and we can only record the call if the same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not of our nature. As long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shall never hear the call of God. The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says. To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered".
Throughout the years that I've been journaling in the side margins of this book, there is a constant thread of thought I've written down - "help me to hear you better Lord, and to be obedient to whatever you ask of me".
Well, that's easy to say, but I know there have been times when I've not followed through as I should have. Then comes the feelings of guilt and failure. The Lord doesn't want us walking around like that though, and he is always willing to give us yet another chance to fine tune our hearing of his voice, and gives us more opportunities to act on his call.
Remember, the nature of God is love, mercy, compassion, grace, generosity, patience......and if I (we) allow ourselves to really focus on who God is, all his holy attributes, and that he knows what is best for any situation, it will enable us to be more easily receptive to follow him in anything he asks of us.
I know that when I go out to do my running around today, that there will be some kind of opportunity for me to exhibit the Lord and all his goodness, to someone. My prayer is that my hearing him speak to me about that opportunity, will be fine tuned and productive.
Have a blessed Friday, and a great weekend ahead!

Janelle

1 comment:

Jamie Lott said...

You are always such an uplifting and inspirational person. And so very, very sweet. I'm proud to call you my TDIPT Sister! ;)

Have a great day!

Jamie