10 Days, Not 10 Minutes

Forgive the Sabbatical; it was unintentional. The past month I have been running on 'E' in my life. While there are some exciting opportunities on the horizon, the landscape immediately in front of Ally and I has been less than smooth. For someone who pushes the power of words so hard, I have not been doing myself many favors. Confusion has been the "talk of the town" at home. I should really learn to take my own advice. I know what God told me to do; it didn't make much sense, but then again, God's instructions haven't made sense for years. That should have been the key give-away that it was God. My plans make sense in my head, and then fall-apart in a blaze of glory (mostly blaze, little glory). Once we made a decision to follow, the hordes of hell unleashed in flurry. I was expecting that, but did not adequately prepare. Now, a month later, I am tired. My wife is tired. We burnt ourselves out, then turned to TV shows and video games to "relax." Those do not help. They only mask what is really going on. Never fear, Internet-Land, we are back. God snaps people out of their fits-of-stupid when given the opportunity. Which brings me to today's... Lesson??

Today I went back to the last thing God told me to do: Bible study first thing in the morning, book of Jeremiah, journal at the ready. I sleepily began in chapter 41 (I don't really remember much). I stood up, shook off the sleepies *insert Gollum-impression my wife hates here* and went on to chapter 42. Here we find a pack of refugees in the Judean wilderness. Their king is dead, the Chaldeans have been besieging them, Babylon has taken many of their kin captive. They turn to Jeremiah and ask him to go before the Lord to learn what His directions for these people are. As I am reading this story, verse 7 jumps off the page at me. It re-energized me as I read it a few times, and let it sink in. What I thought would be a struggle to give God another five minutes on The Couch, turned into an hour-and-a-half. [Note to any others out there struggling to give God the attention He deserves, doing so on The Couch (oh yes, it is The Couch) may not be the best idea]. Now that I have had my fun rambling, I think you should read the verse: 

"Now at the end of ten days the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah"

Ten days?? I struggle to give God ten minutes! This makes sense as to why so many of us struggle to know what God is endeavoring to do in our lives. When was the last time any of us gave God ten full days to speak to us regarding the direction of our lives or ministries? Better yet, when was the last time we gave Him more then ten minutes to say much of anything? Our culture and generation is not designed for that kind of patience. We want things as fast as possible. Our attention spans have been shortened to that of a gnat. We do not handle silence well (in fact, I have music playing as I write this). Ten days. I couldn't continue reading, because I had to write this down. It was that impact-ful to my life at this moment, because of what the Lord is calling me to in the future. If I am ever to move further into the life of ministry God has spent all these years pointing me toward, I have to give Him more than ten minutes of my day. That has scared me in the past. I have not fully trusted myself to do that. The Word has been dry the past month, because I have not given the Lord time to work with it. It was my fault, not His. I gave up on the discipline and diligence required of any child of God.

There is no set "formula" for hearing from God. However, diligence is a necessity. It will not always take ten days to receive an answer from the Lord; yet it is just unlikely that you will receive an answer in ten minutes. Christianity is not microwavable. As I have said often before (and forgotten just as frequently), Jesus refers to the Word and the Kingdom of God as "seed" - which takes time to grow. The life of faith cannot be developed in ten-minute-per-day intervals. That is the blueprint for Christian defeat. Jesus instructs us to "seek" the Lord (Matthew 7). He is not hiding things from you. He is hiding things for you. But you have to put forth the work to find all that He has for you. You have to spend time with Him and His Word in order to develop the faith (Romans 4:17) and the confidence (Hebrews 10:35) necessary to receive the answers you desire from the Lord. 

You may not have ten days, but you have more than ten minutes. God desires quality over quantity. He knows how much time you have to give Him each day. Give Him the best of what you have to give; that is what is honoring to Him. The Lord says He gives honor to those who honor Him, and will lightly esteem those who despise (think little of) Him (1Samuel 2:30). What comes first, your family, your programs, your sleep, your stomach, or your God and His Word? The right answer is found when you give ear to the Lord. If you keep reading the story, you find that the people didn't like Jeremiah's response and went ahead and did their own thing. They died. I say we avoid that by giving God the time and honor He deserves (I'm going to hear from my wife on that one later...).