October 19

“God will not equip us with His power while we are racing off to our next appointment!  His Spirit will not empower us if we are oblivious to what He is saying.  He requires our complete attention before he will fill us with the powerful presence of His Spirit.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 10/2

This is a good day for me to read this and write about it.  I’m feeling particularly inundated with things to do.  Because of that I found my attention drifting as I read my morning devotionals and realizing I wasn’t “getting anything” out of them.  But this one struck a chord with me, and I then understood why the others weren’t “speaking” to me.  In fact, now that God has my attention I realized He woke me up with this message.  On the radio the fellow was talking about how we really don’t listen to people when they talk.  Instead, we’re usually busy thinking about what we want to say next.  I noticed this on the TV news yesterday.  The interviewer had asked a question that the interviewee did not answer, but the Interviewer went on to another question.  I guess she wasn’t listening to the other person either.  I am guilty of this myself.  I took an acting class once that stressed that once you memorize your lines, you need to forget about them and focus on what the other person is saying instead.  This will prompt your memory while allowing you to have a real interaction with the other person in the scene.  This is good advice for all of us!

“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools;”  Ecclesiastes 5:1a