Tuesday, March 27, 2012

In the Whispers

Our first Sunday, we stayed in for church since we had no idea where to go or how to get there. We read Mark 9 which talks about the Transfiguration of Jesus. What a huge moment for Peter, James, and John. And Jesus. He was about to reveal his magnificent glory to a few of those who had abandoned it all to follow him. As I read these verses, I definitely get the feeling that these three guys were like WHOA! What exactly did we just see. But no matter what must have been going through their minds or going on in their hearts, there was no way they could have missed the glory of God through Jesus.

Next we listened to a sermon by Erwin McManus in which he referenced 1 Kings 19. Elijah is hopeless and desperate because his life has been threatened. He is so desperate that he is laying under a tree praying to die, when an angel comes along and gives him some food. Utterly hopeless. God brings him to the mountain and asks him to stand there and to wait. Then there is a huge windstorm, then an earthquake, and finally a fire. But God is not in those things. No, he comes along afterwards as a whisper. A still small voice. I began to think that what if Elijah would have decided to stop waiting for God to show up because he wasn't in the big things. If you read back a few chapters, God has allowed Elijah to call fire down from Heaven, bring rain to a land that was parched. God has shown up and done some huge stuff. Elijah couldn't have missed the Glory of God in those moments. But here he is right after all that, hopeless, looking for God again. What if he would have missed the whisper because he was expecting the fire?

How many times do we, do I do this? Like with the Transfiguration, God is so obvious in some things. When we went from 20% support to 60% in a week, it was easy to see God in that. But do I miss him in the whispers? In the moments when He leans so close to my face, breathes into my ear, saying "You are my beloved", "I am with you" "There is no one who could hold you tighter than I do", "See my beauty". Tim and I try so much to see God in the big things as well as the small. When he whispers to us through a Jr. High student who gives a speech in class about what God is doing in our lives, when people email us words of encouragement, when our sadnesses are turned to joy, when the internet works and we get to see our family, talk to our faraway friends. Lately, God has been in the whispers so much. Really, nothing HUGE has happened since we have been at language school. Each day is basically just a slightly different version of the previous day. But God has been talking to us in his still, small voice so much. If we would have been looking to be overwhelmed, we would have missed all that He is doing each day. And oddly enough, when we combine all the whispers, we have found ourselves amazed. Overwhelmed.

May we not miss God in the big or the small. He is alive, active, and always on the move.

We would love to here what God is doing in your lives! Leave a comment or email us and let us know how He whispers to you!


(The fine print: I don't even pretend to be scholarly, or a theologian, or know how to use punctuation! These are just my thoughts!)


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