'For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them, but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.' Proverbs 1:32-33
Listening. It takes time to listen to people, to listen to our friends stories of life and kids and family. It all takes time. Time we spend with friends and family are important. Time with our children and their sporting events or dance or whatever they are into is so very important. Time at the church serving is important. Time. So often we spend it doing and doing and doing. In and of itself is not bad of course. I wonder tho if we were doing with God being our guide if all that time we spend doing would become doing for God.
I keep warning, myself included, that if we continue to refuse to spend time doing for God our doing is in vain. It takes much time to hear God. Not only does it take time it takes effort and reading and learning and studying. It takes conversations with people of faith to sharpen our skills in communicating what it is we do believe. What if what we did we did with a purpose that included something for God. What if each baseball tournament I went to I talked about how I love my church and why, how God is who I try to follow and how sometimes I just fall on my face in failure. What if our business is really supposed to be a ministry tool for these families we do funeral DVD's for. I have thought about that one quite a bit. Use it as a ministry so God can be glorified. But just being your sweet and compassionate self is just not enough. People can be sweet and compassionate and not have God in their life. How do I say what is in my heart?
Listen: to what God has to say about that. Hard to do when I am constantly on the go. I seem to be continually smacked in the face with that one. Busy is something I do thrive on- no big secret there. But it isn't helping me to focus on God. I would think that after all that has happened in the last 2 years I would have a handle on that one. I had nothing but time while I was fighting cancer. Lots of time to learn some lessons God had for me. And one of them was the verse above; that if I listen to God I will live in safety and be at ease, living without fear. And it worked! I had much time to spend with God- to spend time WITH God. I had time for processing and really learning life changing concepts. Some as simple as no matter what cancer has in store for me it cannot take away what God has in store for me. I mean my goodness, God had me speaking in front of people, sharing my story, sharing His story in me. That's a big deal.
Having cancer changes a person. Physically, I am not the same. I am not as scared to speak my mind. I am going to do all I can to keep up with the kids. I may be busy, but it is a different busy. Baseball and family and friend busy. Not wasting time busy. Busy building the business-trying to make it a ministry too. Busy avoiding thoughts of the fear of recurrence or metastasis. That is perhaps when busy should stop so time to heal and think and listen can occur.
It isn't so much about living without harm. I mean disease is harmful. But living by listening so I can have some peace about my health- whether good or bad. So I can still be at ease with the life that has been chosen for me to live. The harm comes when I go against what God wants me to do. Harm to my soul, to my witness. Of that harm I could become fearful. So listening to what God has to say to me seems to be pretty important- safety, ease and no fear of harm. It just seems easier to focus on that when you are in a bad spot, in a desert region. When life is smoothly following a steady path it is so much more difficult to hear what it is God is saying and wanting us to do.
So I am going to try to listen, so I can live in safety and at ease and without fear of harm. The key is knowing safety and ease can come to us even in those times of trial and desert walking.
Face the desert with open ears.
Face the normal day with open ears.
Then let your heart follow.
