As I already said in the previous
blog, sometimes the Lord calls us to do something and the choice to
obey is up to us. I am not simply talking about big life changing
things. It could also be something small. You see most of the time
the Lord tests us with small tasks and if He sees that He can trust
us with the small things He will give us a bigger task the
following time. For example my son's nursery school teacher
regularly lends some of her books to us for my son to page through
in the afternoons after school. Now if we didn't look after these
books or worse yet never returned those books to her, do you think
she will lend it to us again? I don't think so. In the same way the
Lord tests our faithfulness with small tasks first, before the
bigger ones follow. Now let me give you an example from my life
where the Lord gave me a small task to do and I didn't obey
immediately.
In my second year of working I
listened to a song from one of my gospel CD's. It was a different
version from 'Amazing Grace' and I loved it. Every time I listened
to it in the car I would start moving around and singing along. Now
I must say I did a bit of dancing at that time and every time the
song came on I envisioned doing a dance on that song and I had a
very strong feeling in my heart that the Lord wanted me to perform
a dance on that song in front of our church. Every time I brushed
off the feeling, as our church was very big and they only allowed
the best of the best to perform anything there. Yet the feeling
remained. No matter what I did, I couldn't brush it off. It went on
like this for months and after a while I must admit that the
feeling did begin to fade. Almost a year after first feeling that I
should do a dance on that song I truly started to feel guilty. The
voice had faded, but I convinced myself that the Lord was very
disappointed in me because I didn't listen. So I decided to take
the step and work out a dance. Now I was a coward and didn't want
to do the dance on my own, so I asked three of my friends to join
me. They agreed and in our three by four meter kitchen we practiced
the dance (it was a very difficult task in such a small space I
might add!).
But finally we were ready. I
bought matching tops for us and I approached the church and asked
them if we could come to perform the dance for them. I told them
how the Lord heavily laid it on my heart. They said that they would
need to preview it first. The following week in between all four of
our work schedules we managed to go and show them the dance. They
didn't say much, thanked us for coming, said they would phone us
and left. I was a bit disappointed, but brushed it off and decided
to phone them a little bit later myself. That same Sunday in church
after the sermon, a lady came to the front and performed a dance on
exactly the same version of 'Amazing Grace'. Not even by a
different singer, it was exactly the same song. I couldn't believe
it. I went green with jealousy and thought that it should have been
me on the stage! I even went so far as to think that our dance and
choreography was much better than hers. Immediately the Lord
stopped my evil trail of thought and said: 'I did ask you more than
a year ago to come and perform the dance. You were hesitant and
waited far too long. I had to get someone else.' I went cold. He is
right. I took way too long to respond. I actually just organized
the dance to clear my conscience, as the Lord's voice has long
stopped calling. Even worse I was not only late, but I didn't have
the guts to do it alone, even though the Lord asked me to.
Now I am not saying that that one
dance would have changed my life if I had listened to His calling
or that someone magically would have seen me and offered me some
kind of a life changing opportunity. But what I do know is
that that would have been nice to perform in front of the
congregation in honor of His Name and I know today that it was a
test to see if I would be obedient. I truly believe that the Lord
would use you (and me) more and more for His Kingdom and His Name
if you would be obedient to His calling. And the benefit to heeding
His call? Peace in your life that you are doing what you are placed
here on earth to do. The void in your life would be filled with the
glory of the Lord, the void that no material blessing can ever
fulfill. You will be happy. Are you ready to listen?
In the next few blogs I will
discuss some of the familiar biblical characters and how the Lord
used them.
May your ears be open to hear Him
call. May you spend enough time with Him to hear His heart beat.
May you know what He wants you to do with your life. Amen.