I had some work to do on the computer and I needed a soundtrack. I had read a blog post and they had included a download. When I tried downloading it I wanted to put it with some others from the same person. It took a bit of hunting but I found a whole host of other ones from that same person. There was plenty there to use for a soundtrack.
There was one set of sound files that stood out to me as good ones to use as a soundtrack. I started listening to them but whoa what is all that about. They were talking about the redemptive gifts seen in Romans. I have never gone through the material from that speaker on how to work out what is your gift. I have watched a few videos by this speaker on YouTube and these gave me a few clues.
I was not sure what these sound files were about from the title. It was soon obvious that they were about finding ideas about how to pray for your community and make it into all God wants it to be. Strange though they were talking about the good and bad points about these gifts.
This time there was little doubt which category I fell into. All the bad points about communities that fell into a certain category applied to me. As they were talking about how to improve communities it made sense to talk about the things that needed to be improved.
I listened to some and they sort of made sense for other people or even some places. Then there was one and it hit home and hit hard. All the negative descriptions used for places described issues that I knew I had but I did not really appreciate the reason why.
It is the way we see things that is important
The reason I could see them so clearly was that the work I was doing on the computer while I was listening was stuff that really demonstrated those negative descriptions. I could see the facts on the screen in front of me.
They were things that I had sort of noticed before. Yet somehow they seemed to be normal for me. The thing was here was someone calling them what they were negative things that needed to be overcome. They were things that I had tolerated. They were things that were just part of me, not things that needed to be challenged and overcome.
It was strange. It was as if I suddenly realised the true situation. These were not little things that could or should be tolerated these were things that I really needed to deal with so that I could do what God wanted me to do. Ouch.
In a sense, we all do this. We say well that might be something to think about later. It is not really that importunate in the greater scheme of things, is it? We go into denial and don’t take any responsibility for making things better.
This time though it was not me saying you should really do this rather than that and hearing the denial coming back Well it might be important to you but I like things as they are and I am not going to change.
Wake up then shake up
There are times when God needs to wake up His people and show them things that they had sort of overlooked. He can do this in strange ways sometimes. This is when we need to be willing to work with Him.
He has a habit of trying various ways and various people to get through to folks and guess what, we switch our hearing aid off. He is trying but we just sort of stop listening. We don’t want to listen because when we listen out for something like this it means we have to do something to improve the situation. If we don’t bother listening then we won’t know what to do differently and that is so much easier.
It can shake us up sometimes just how much of an issue He thinks something is. Yes, it is important. It so important that I need you to deal with this in order for you do do what you want me to do. Oh No, do I really have to.
Ask then receive
There was something I was struggling with and I had been asking what I should do about it. I suppose you could say that listening to those sound files was the start of an answer to prayer. The challenge is now what do I do next?
The issue is really can I do the right thing calmly without overreacting and going too far the other way. That is the challenge that lies before me. I have some praying and thinking to do about this yet.