Recently I put up a chalkboard in my kitchen, it sits next to the door so that I see it every time I leave the room, it was bought with the intention of being my sure fire way to never forget anything important again.
The first couple of days worked perfectly, I would write something on the board, notice it as I left the kitchen and remember to complete the task without any bother, coming home to wipe the reminder off the board…. Then came a day where I remembered to leave a camera to a friend but simply ran out of time, it would be a couple of days before they would need them again, I decided to leave the message up until the day when I would be able to get the camera dropped off.
That day came and went with me completely forgetting to leave the camera off, it was only when I received a call did I remember the camera and the message.
I wondered what happened that I hadn’t noticed the giant ‘CAMERA’ message written in bright yellow chalk on the board, the message hadn’t faded or magically disappeared, there it was staring right at me.
I realised that I had gotten used to the message, it wasn’t fresh and new and so it simply vanished out of my mind, it became part of my everyday existence, my daily scenery, it was still there when I went looking for it, it hadn’t faded or disappeared, I simply wasn’t paying attention to its presence.
I wonder how often we treat the father like that, we go through the same routines or ways of spending time with him that it becomes so routine that it doesn’t move us… In these moments he hasn’t faded away or completely disappeared but rather we have fallen into a pattern that we hear him but don’t acknowledge it, his voice becomes part of our daily scenery and no longer stands out. I want God to be part of my everyday, but I also want him to always stand out, to clearly know when he is calling my name.
Tonight in small group we were told we would be trying different ways of communicating with God, including some methods that hopefully we didn’t like! The idea being if we didn’t like them, that at least means they were new and we hadn’t tried that before. So tonight we wrote God letters from us and then we wrote ourselves letters from the father to us… It was incredible listening as people got fresh revelation, fresh insight, fresh affirment,fresh grace and fresh love, these people spend time in prayer, they love Jesus and he loves them, he hadn’t faded or disappeared, he simply wanted to communicate in a fresh way
Do Something Different….
Read the bible in the morning, listen to worship songs in the car, chat out loud to God or spend time in quiet prayer… Do something that freshens up your relationship with the father, I believe you’ll be amazed at how fresh connection to him changes you