The God Who Listens to You

The God Who Listens to You
You’re at your best friend’s wedding reception. The two of you have talked about this day since you were kids, and now it’s here. The ceremony was great; the wedding was beautiful. The minister was flawless and the vows were honest. What a day!

“I’ll take care of the reception,” you volunteered. You planned the best party possible. You hired the band, rented the hall, catered the meal, decorated the room, and asked your Aunt Bertha to bake the cake. Now the band is playing and the guests are milling, but Aunt Bertha is nowhere to be seen.

Everything is here but the cake. You sneak over to the pay phone and dial her number. She’s been taking a nap. She thought the wedding was next week. Oh boy! Now what do you do? Talk about a problem! Everything is here but the cake…

Sound familiar?

It might. It’s exactly the dilemma Jesus’ mother, Mary, was facing. The wedding was moving. The guests were celebrating…but the wine was gone. Back then, wine was to a wedding what cake is to a wedding today. Can you imagine a wedding without cake? They couldn’t imagine a wedding without wine. To offer wine was to show respect to your guests. Not to offer wine at a wedding was an insult.
What Mary faced was a social problem. A foul-up. A snafu. A calamity on the common scale. No need to call 911, but no way to sweep the embarrassment under the rug, either.
When you think about it, most of the problems we face are of the same caliber. Seldom do we have to deal with dilemmas of national scale or world conflict. Seldom do our crises rock the Richter scale. Usually, the waves we ride are made by pebbles, not boulders. We’re late for a meeting. We leave something at the office. A coworker forgets a report. Mail gets lost. Traffic gets snarled. The waves rocking our lives are not life threatening yet. But they can be. A poor response to a simple problem can
light a fuse. What begins as a snowflake can snowball into an avalanche unless proper care is taken.

For that reason you might want to note how Mary reacted. Her solution poses a practical plan for untangling life’s knots. “They have no more wine,” she told Jesus (John 2:3). That’s it. That’s all she said. She didn’t go ballistic. She simply assessed the problem and gave it to Christ.
“A problem well stated is a problem half solved,” John Dewey said. Mary would have liked that, for that’s what she did. She defined the problem.
She could have exploded: “Why didn’t you plan better? There’s not enough wine! Whose fault is this anyway? You guys never do anything right. If anything is to be done right around here I have to do it myself!”
Or she could have imploded: “This is my fault, I failed. I’m to blame. I deserve it. If only I’d majored in culinary art. I’m a failure in life. Go ahead; do the world a favor. Tie me up and march me to the gallows. I deserve it.”
It’s so easy to focus on everything but the solution. Mary didn’t do that. She simply looked at the knot, assessed it, and took it to the right person. “I’ve got one here I can’t untie, Jesus.”
“When all the wine was gone Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine’” (John 2:3).
Please note, she took the problem to Jesus before she took it to anyone else. A friend told me about a tense deacons’ meeting he attended. Apparently there was more agitation than agreement, and after a lengthy discussion, someone suggested, “Why don’t we pray about it?” to which another questioned, “Has it come to that?”
What causes us to think of prayer as the last option rather than the first? I can think of two reasons: feelings of independence and feelings of insignificance.
Sometimes we’re independent. We begin to think we are big enough to solve our own
problems. At our house we have had a banner year. Our third daughter has learned how to swim. That means that three can walk. Three can swim. And two out of the three have the training wheels off their bikes. With each achievement they have delightedly pointed out, “Look, Dad, I can do it on my own.”
Denalyn and I have applauded and celebrated each accomplishment our daughters have made. Their maturity and mobility is good and necessary, but I hope they never get to the point where they are too grown up to call their daddy.
God feels the same way about us.
Other times we don’t feel independent; we feel insignificant. We think, “Sure, Mary can take her problems to Jesus. She’s his mother. He doesn’t want to hear my problems. Besides, he’s got famine and the Mafia to deal with. I don’t want to trouble him with my messes.”

If that is your thought, may I share with you a favorite verse of mine? I like it so much I wrote it on the first page of my Bible. “Because he delights in me, he saved me” (Ps. 18:19).

And you thought he saved you because of your decency. You thought he saved you because of your good works or good attitude or good looks. Sorry. If that were the case, your salvation would be lost when your voice went south or your works got weak. There are many reasons God saves you: to bring glory to himself, to appease his justice, to demonstrate his sovereignty. But one of the sweetest reasons God saved you is because he is fond of you. He likes having you around. He thinks you are the
best thing to come down the pike in quite awhile. “As a man rejoices over his new wife, so your God will rejoice over you.” (Isa. 62:5).
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and he chose your heart. And the Christmas gift he sent you in Bethlehem? Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you.
The last thing you should worry about is being a nuisance to God. All you need to concentrate on is doing what he tells you to do. Note the sequence of events in the next verse: “Jesus said to the servants, ‘fill the jars with water.’ So they filled the jars to the top. The he said to them, ‘Now take some out and give it to the master of the feast.’ So they took the water to the master. When he tasted it, the
water had become wine” (John 2:7-9).
Did you see the sequence? First the jars were filled with water. Then Jesus instructed the servants to take the water (not the wine) to the master.
Now, if I’m a servant, I don’t want to do that. How is that going to solve the problem? And what is the master going to say when I give him a cup of water? But these servants either had enough naivete or trust to do what or trust to do what Jesus said, and so the problem was solved. Note, the water became wine after they had obeyed, not before.
What if the servants had refused? What if they had said, “No way”? Or, to bring the pint closer to home, what if you refuse? What if you identify the problem, take it to Jesus, and then refuse to do what he says?
That’s possible. After all, God is asking you to take some pretty gutsy steps. Money is tight, but he still asks you to give. You’ve been offended, but he asks you to forgive your offender. Someone else blew the assignment, but he still asks you to be patient. You can’t see God’s face, but he still asks you to pray.
Not commands for the faint of faith. But then again, he wouldn’t ask you to do it if he thought you couldn’t. So go ahead. Next time you face a common calamity, follow the example of Mary at the wineless wedding:
Identify the problem. (You’ll half-solve it.)
Present it to Jesus. (He’s happy to help.)
Do what he says. (No matter how crazy.)
And buy your Aunt Bertha a new calendar.

The Secret Ingredient

For years I have had a saying which I tell my family.
Whenever they compliment my cooking, sewing abilities, gardening skills or thoughtful deeds, I always say, "well, you know it is special because it was done with love."

This is true- the special added secret ingredient to make anything more exceptional is to add an extra dash of love to it.

We should remember to say a quick prayer for the recipient, a prayer of thanks for God given talents or praise to the Lord for the desire to do this special thing.

Counting our blessings never hurts!

Likewise, our loving heavenly Father has added this "special ingredient" when He made you and when He made me.

He made us in His likeness, with a special measure of love.

The One who created everything has added this beautiful "secret ingredient" into the lives of His children.

How blessed we are!

by Marion Smith

Touches of Tenderness

My child's feelings are hurt. I tell her she's special. My child is injured. I do whatever it takes to make her feel better. My child is afraid. I won't go to sleep until she is secure. I'm not a hero. I'm not a superstar. I'm not unusual. I'm a parent. When a child hurts, a parent does what comes naturally. He helps.Moments of comfort from a parent. As a father, I can tell you they are the sweetest moments in my day. They come naturally. They come willingly. They come joyfully.

If all of that is true, if I know that one of the privileges of fatherhood is to comfort a child, then why am I so reluctant to let my heavenly Father comfort me?

Why do I think he wouldn't want to hear about my problems? ("They are puny compared to people starving in India.")
Why do I think he is too busy for me? ("He's got a whole universe to worry about.")
Why do I think he's tired of hearing the same old stuff?
Why do I think he groans when he sees me coming?
Why do I think he consults his list when I ask for forgiveness and asks, "Don't you think you're going to the well a few too many times on this one?"
Why do I think I have to speak a holy language around him that I don't speak with anyone else?
Why don't I let my Father do for me what I am more than willing to do for my own children?I'm learning, though.

Being a parent is better than a course on theology. Being a father is teaching me that when I am criticized, injured, or afraid, there is a Father who is ready to comfort me.

There is a Father who will hold me until I'm better,

help me until I can live with the hurt,

and who won't go to sleep when I'm afraid of waking up and seeing the dark.

Ever.

And that's enough.

From The Applause of Heaven Copyright 1990, Max Lucado

Receive God's Hope

"Come near to God and God will come near to you." James 4:8

Your toughest challenge is nothing more than bobby pins and rubber bands to God. Bobby pins and rubber bands?

My older sister used to give them to me when I was a child. I would ride my tricycle up and down the sidewalk, pretending that the bobby pins were keys and my trike was a truck.

But one day I lost the "keys." Crisis! What was I going to do? My search yielded nothing but tears and fear. But when I confessed my mistake to my sister, she just smiled. Being a decade older, she had a better perspective.

God has a better perspective as well.
With all due respect, our severest struggles are, in his view, nothing worse than lost bobby pins and rubber bands.
He is not confounded, confused, or discouraged.

Receive his hope, won't you?
Receive it because you need it.
Receive it so you can share it.

Originally printed in A Love Worth Giving by Max Lucado

God Gets Into Our Lives

I do not live anymore – it is Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20

You have leaves to rake. A steering wheel to grip. A neighbor's hand to shake. Simply put you have things to do.So does God. Babies need hugs. Children need good-night tucks. AIDS orphans need homes. Stressed-out executives need hope.

God has work to do.
And he uses our hands to do it.
What the hand is to the glove, the Spirit is to the Christian….

God gets into us.
At times, imperceptibly.
Other times, disruptively.

God gets his fingers into our lives, inch by inch reclaiming the territory that is rightfully his.

Your tongue. He claims it for his message.
Your feet. He requisitions them for his purpose.
Your mind? He made it and intends to use it for his glory.
Your eyes, face, and hands? Through them he will weep, smile, and touch.

Originally printed in Come Thirsty by Max Lucado