January 18, 2010
“Every happening, great or small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.” Malcolm Muggeridge
As I read today’s quote my brain connected it to another. The old familiar one of, “been there done that” we frequently like to use. A quote that appears to be missing the part that should say, “Been there done that learned from it.” Basically that is what Malcolm is saying here that God speaks to us through everything that happens great or small. However Malcolm doesn’t stop there as his quote comes with the part on the end that says, “The art of life is to get the message.”
Indeed our part is to “get the message.” Sadly enough in the place of wanting to get the message we often want to “shoot the messenger” by cussing Him out or blaming Him for all that is going on in our lives. Instead of giving Him credit for making beautiful the art of life by what He has to say to us and what we can learning from it. We put the fault on Him for messing up our perfect picture we seem to think we can paint for ourselves.
Where I work, documentation is important. If you don’t document correctly sometimes you can basically “shoot yourself in the foot.” In other words harm your outcome because you didn’t get down what needed to be.
God is out there speaking to us through our circumstances and we need to be paying attention. Unfortunately the only time we appear to be home spiritually to answer the knock on the door of our hearts from God is during these moments. If we are smart enough to answer His knocking we need to be intelligent enough to invite Him in and ask, “what is it you want me to learn from this situation.”
Slamming the door in God’s face and ignoring the message we need to get will only harm the outcome of what needs to be accomplished. It doesn’t have to be “been there done that and had to go back and learn it again” type of situation. If possible for every situation we enter we need to try to come out of it wiser and more perfected towards our goal of being the model Christ wants us to be.
For every happening, great or small it doesn’t matter God is leaving us a sticky note with a message on it for us to read and learn from. Looking back over the years and the times I choose to shoot the messenger by getting angry and frustrated with Him because He wasn’t listening to me or showing that He cared I find the sticky notes I failed to see because I refused to look.
Notes reading something like this, “Karen, I love you.” “Hang in there Karen I’m here.” “Little more to the right Karen you’re leaning to far the other way.” “Grow some patience Karen, it’s a virtue.” Trust or worry, which is it going to be with you.” “Don’t ever think the light at the end of the tunnel is a train, it’s Me coming toward you or better yet you getting closer to Me.” “I forgave you, you can forgive others.” “Don’t beat yourself down Karen, lift yourself up using My strength I give to you.” “Do you have your ears on Karen? Are you listening? I’m knocking. Don’t be so slow to answer. I have a bag of blessings for you.”
Sitting here in tears reading those old notes still stuck in my heart I could go on more and more about the messages left behind for me to read and learn from. As a child learns not to touch a light-bulb when it’s on by touching it when mom’s not watching we need to learn as well. What we extract from our circumstances, situations or happenings in life is up to us. They can make us bitter or better, more mature or add to our immaturity.
“Lord, what do You want us to learn from this?” is the correct question and the best way to enter or exit every journey we find ourselves in as we travel through life picking up sticky notes from God along the way.
“Every happening, great or small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.” Malcolm Muggeridge
As I read today’s quote my brain connected it to another. The old familiar one of, “been there done that” we frequently like to use. A quote that appears to be missing the part that should say, “Been there done that learned from it.” Basically that is what Malcolm is saying here that God speaks to us through everything that happens great or small. However Malcolm doesn’t stop there as his quote comes with the part on the end that says, “The art of life is to get the message.”
Indeed our part is to “get the message.” Sadly enough in the place of wanting to get the message we often want to “shoot the messenger” by cussing Him out or blaming Him for all that is going on in our lives. Instead of giving Him credit for making beautiful the art of life by what He has to say to us and what we can learning from it. We put the fault on Him for messing up our perfect picture we seem to think we can paint for ourselves.
Where I work, documentation is important. If you don’t document correctly sometimes you can basically “shoot yourself in the foot.” In other words harm your outcome because you didn’t get down what needed to be.
God is out there speaking to us through our circumstances and we need to be paying attention. Unfortunately the only time we appear to be home spiritually to answer the knock on the door of our hearts from God is during these moments. If we are smart enough to answer His knocking we need to be intelligent enough to invite Him in and ask, “what is it you want me to learn from this situation.”
Slamming the door in God’s face and ignoring the message we need to get will only harm the outcome of what needs to be accomplished. It doesn’t have to be “been there done that and had to go back and learn it again” type of situation. If possible for every situation we enter we need to try to come out of it wiser and more perfected towards our goal of being the model Christ wants us to be.
For every happening, great or small it doesn’t matter God is leaving us a sticky note with a message on it for us to read and learn from. Looking back over the years and the times I choose to shoot the messenger by getting angry and frustrated with Him because He wasn’t listening to me or showing that He cared I find the sticky notes I failed to see because I refused to look.
Notes reading something like this, “Karen, I love you.” “Hang in there Karen I’m here.” “Little more to the right Karen you’re leaning to far the other way.” “Grow some patience Karen, it’s a virtue.” Trust or worry, which is it going to be with you.” “Don’t ever think the light at the end of the tunnel is a train, it’s Me coming toward you or better yet you getting closer to Me.” “I forgave you, you can forgive others.” “Don’t beat yourself down Karen, lift yourself up using My strength I give to you.” “Do you have your ears on Karen? Are you listening? I’m knocking. Don’t be so slow to answer. I have a bag of blessings for you.”
Sitting here in tears reading those old notes still stuck in my heart I could go on more and more about the messages left behind for me to read and learn from. As a child learns not to touch a light-bulb when it’s on by touching it when mom’s not watching we need to learn as well. What we extract from our circumstances, situations or happenings in life is up to us. They can make us bitter or better, more mature or add to our immaturity.
“Lord, what do You want us to learn from this?” is the correct question and the best way to enter or exit every journey we find ourselves in as we travel through life picking up sticky notes from God along the way.
© 2010 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing
7 comments:
Great post! It is easy to miss the messages when we are not looking. I know I often need to be a little more observant. Thanks for sharing.
I also used the example of the world wanting us to blame God for our troubles instead of listening to God and trusting Him. I like the idea of the "sticky notes". It's a good way to describe the things I've seen in my own life lately that are from God. :-)
Listening and learning should go hand in hand when we hear from God, but so often we listen and go away and forget what we heard. May God bless you as you take to heart the sticky notes He has blessed you with.
Listening and learning should go hand in hand when we hear from God, but so often we hear and go away and forget what God just said. May God bless you as you learn from the sticky notes He has placed on your heart.
Sticky Notes!!!!
Love that analogy. :)
It's too bad that people throw around that phrase, "...been there; done that," but fail to tack on that all-important suffix "LEARNED from it."
Your post reminds me of the saying, Truth Hurts. Sometimes we fail to "get the message" because our flesh gets in the way.
Wonderful lesson here.
Thank you,
~es.
Don't shoot the messenger. I like that.
Karen, this is beautiful! I love the image of post-it notes from God all over the place.. and thinking about how we react to the Messenger.. wow!
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