Category Archives: Hearing from God

God’s Alarm Clock

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For whatever reason, my bedtime has become later and later. Although I was a keen critic of my teenagers staying up till the wee hours, the past few months have seen me following suit. I’ve had to eat my words that “nothing good happens after midnight,” since God often gives me blog-insights well after that.

At first I tried to camouflage my new habit: “Last night was just a fluke, kids. I’m still a morning person.” But as the weeks passed, my lark-ness morphed into owl-y-ness. Even Jack complied, dragging around all morning like a record at 33 1/3 speed, but zipping up to 78 at midnight.

Last night I crawled into bed after 3:00 AM. My final words to the Lord were, “I know. This is ridiculous.”

SpiderThis morning God announced a new program for me. Just as he provided a worm to eat Jonah’s biblical vine to get him up and going, he provided a tiny critter to nibble me awake. I never saw it, but my best guess about the sharp jab in my forearm was a spider. Although we’ve seen daddy-long-legs in our basement, I’ve always told skitterish kids spiders aren’t interested in climbing two flights to the bedrooms. But when God says go, animals do.

Nate was right when he repeatedly said our battle against woodland critters would be ongoing, since we lived on the edge of a forest. We agreed it would be pointless to call pest control, sort of like trying to keep the bottom of a boat from getting wet.

After God’s wake-up this morning, I noticed the clock said 8:00 and knew I needed more than five hours of sleep before tackling the day. But while drifting off again, a second “ouch” woke me. Finally I got the message. My thought had been more sleep; his was more hours in my day.

One of the magnificent things about God is how creative he is in achieving his goals. That’s good news for those of us who hunger for his participation in our lives. Oftentimes he allows painful circumstances, but being the recipient of God’s personal attention always includes a positive undercard. If we’re willing to submit, we’ll eventually experience the good stuff.

This morning’s unique wake-up call left two welts that have coaxed me to set my alarm tonight. If I don’t, God may direct his assistant to climb the stairs again. In the mean time, where’s that number for pest control?

“The Lord God provided a vine… to ease [Jonah’s] discomfort. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.” (Jonah 4:6-7)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. Thank you for praying about my painful feeding tube, which is still with me as per the GI doctor’s recommendation today: “Removal is easy. Re-establishing is difficult.”
  2. Pray that new, powerful antibiotics will eliminate infection and ease pain.
  3. Praise for minimal nausea this week, always a concern.

 

Love Without End

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Nate once gave me a Rolex watch worth $5000. When I later lost it, I felt awful. It used to be the only people who were given gold watches had earned them by working forty years at the same institution. Retirement and the watch came together, but I hadn’t done a thing to deserve such a fine gift. As always, Nate had been generous to his wife but not to himself, buying the watch he wished he had, for me. His own watch came from Walmart.

When I tried to think of some way to show my remorse over losing the watch, my only idea was to buy a Rolex for him. But I didn’t work outside our home and had no paycheck. The weekly allowance he gave me worked well to manage our household, but the dollars were mostly spoken-for. The only answer was to save a little bit here and there until I finally had enough.

Rolex watch boxIt took me several years.

But the day finally came when I counted $2500 in my plump envelope of bills. I drove to Peacocks Jewelry Store feeling like a Depression-era child about to buy her dream bicycle.

As the salesman spread out the few Rolex designs my money would buy, I chose the one that most resembled the watch he’d chosen for himself years before, for which he’d paid about $25. Before I left the store, I asked if Peacock’s would engrave something on the back:

Love engraved“I’ll love you till the end of time. Your Meg, Christmas, 1985.”

I couldn’t wait for Christmas morning. When it finally arrived, my gift was the hit I’d hoped it would be. Nate was dumbfounded, and he loved my engraved declaration of love on the back.

God also testifies of his deep love for us with an engraving. He says he’s carved us on his palms. In an effort to impress us with the depth of his commitment, he compares a nursing mother and her baby to his relationship with us and asks, “Can a mom forget her nursing child?”

I nursed all my babies. When I’d go out for an evening, leaving the baby at home, my body would always tell me it was time to head home and coax him or her to have an unscheduled meal, just to relieve the pressure. No nursing mother can forget her baby.

God says that in the unlikely case a nursing mother should forget, he never will. To prove it, he engraved us on his palms. Nate’s watch has been set aside now, and eventually it will stop running. But the good news about God’s love is that it’ll never stop.

Not ever.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15-16)

 

Noggin Knocks

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Walking Jack around the neighborhood these days can lead to noggin knocks and goose eggs. It’s acorn time.

AcornsLocal squirrels are working high in the oak trees, chewing away the shells of acorns and collecting the nut-meats for winter. Chipmunks living under our front steps are doing the same. With oak trees everywhere, there’s plenty for all.

When we moved here full time, the sound of acorns banging on roofs, cars, and wooden decks took us off guard, mimicking gun shots. If we looked up, which was risky, a squirrel would inevitably be busy chomping overhead, causing clusters of acorns to fall.

My next door neighbor tells me getting bonked in the head is enough to make you wear a football helmet outdoors. Walking the roads can be perilous, too, with marble-like acorns all along the way. But acorn season can’t be stopped. God is busy sowing seeds.

I love his well-established, logical laws of sowing… and reaping. They apply to acorns and oak trees, but also to us. Erwin Lutzer summarized them well in a memorable sermon years ago:

  • Law #1, we’ll always reap what we sow.
  • Law #2, we’ll always reap in a different season than we sow.
  • Law #3, we’ll always reap more than we sow.

Oak treeOak trees produce acorns, which of course produce more oak trees, not maples or elms. (Law #1)

But it takes months for a buried acorn to put forth a seedling oak tree and over a decade before young oak trees produce acorns. (Law #2)

The big oak trees behind our cottage tower over 50 feet, but each had its beginning in one humble acorn. Today thousands of acorns are falling to the ground in our yard alone. (Law #3)

It’s easy to apply the laws of sowing and reaping to the humble acorn, and we nod with understanding. But applying them to ourselves is another story. Law #1 says, for example, that if we tell a lie, eventually we’ll be deceived ourselves. Law #2 tells us lying probably won’t catch up with us until later, but Law #3 says that when it does, our lives will be permeated with deception, cheating, and dishonesty.

We like to think of ourselves as the exception to every rule, believing if we take shortcuts around God’s laws, we can escape his consequences. So we plow ahead with our own ideas, not necessarily in rebellion but failing to understand God’s stated consequences.

Unfortunately, the biblical laws of sowing and reaping still apply. As lawyers are fond of saying, “Ignorance is no excuse.” Surely that statement originated with God.

BonkToo bad we don’t usually learn just by reading what we should and shouldn’t do. Sometimes God has to hit us over the head with it, sending acorns-to-noggins. But a few goose eggs are worth learning what we need to know.

“All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” (Psalm 119:160)

Praising and Praying with Mary

Pray that I’ll stay as focused on God after good news as after bad, always looking to him for leadership and sustenance.