MY DEAD FAN and HEARING GOD

I was walking through Wal-Mart 5 days ago shopping for groceries (go figure). I passed a display that had pedestal fans at an end-of-the-season cheap rate. It was only $15 and I had the thought that perhaps I should buy that fan. I walked on however, resisting the urge and thinking that I was going to be a smart shopper and not buy it until I need it.

I sleep with a fan on every night. I don't care if it's -10 outside that fan will be on. I guess I like the noise. I have been using the same fan every night for the past 14 years...yes I'm serious (in human years that must make my fan like 106..ha ha). Last night I went to turn on my fan and it would barely move. It just spitted and sputtered and then died right there on the spot. Instantly my mind went back to that fan at Wal-Mart. I smiled and shook my head that I wished I had purchased it then.

As we were getting ready for bed I jokingly said to Sarah, "Why is it I felt so strongly that I should buy a stupid fan and I can clearly here the small voice in me telling me to do it, yet when it comes to whether we should buy a house or move or whatever, it's some major act just to hear God's voice?"

Now do I believe that the Holy Spirit was revealing to me that I should buy a fan? I don't know...perhaps for the sake of the lesson that I've learned through this He did. Don't roll your eyes. I'm not crazy. I just think it's weird that the fan display caught my eye after all these years and that I felt so much like buying but walked away instead.

So this morning Sarah made a very good point to this discussion that we had about the fan and about the bigger choices we face in life. She reminded me that perhaps we get so over the top serious with what we think are big decisions that we can no longer hear the clear voice of God because we insist on clouding up our thougths with OUR thoughts. I wasn't looking for the fan she reminded me but there was that voice saying buying it. I knew I should have bought it but didn't. I didn't know the fan would go out a few days later, but God did. God is so good that He was trying to spare me the agony of going back to Wal-Mart...or He's trying to break my addiction to the fan!

Sarah and I have been praying about our "home" and whether we need to buy, build, or just stay put and satisfied with where we are. Everything "feels" so complicated and we talk about how hard it is to "know" what we should do when there are signs seemingly pointing in different directions. Perhaps we've so overblown and overcomplicated it in our heads that we can't hear God on what He wants. Sometimes He just wants us to do things when He tells us and not belabor the point and pray and pray and pray about it. Don't get me wrong, it's important to pray and seek God's plan and His counsel, but when you get your answer stop asking and start doing it already.

I think we often know when God is speaking to us and yet we push it away and say we're going to keep praying about it. How many times have you known what to do and yet you do your own thing anyway. God gave us His Holy Spirit to be His voice inside of us and yet we write it away as emotion or nonsense thoughts...remember that God's ways may sound like none sense to the human mind because His ways are so much higher than our own.

God told Abraham to leave his country, his relatives, and his father's house to go to the land that He would show him. Abraham was obedient to the point of going but he took his father (Terah..which ironically means delay) with him along with another relative named Lot...even though God said to leave them behind. As a result, Abraham actually got delayed in Haran for a considerable amount of time because he didn't do exactly what God had already told him to do.

Jonah ended up in the belly of a big fish because God had told him to go to Nivenah and he didn't want to go...so Jonah ended up in a fishy pit=stop for a few days until he finally figured out he should be obedient.

I submit that we are too often living in the bellies of big fish and think that we can get by with partial obedience (like Abraham)! The cell phones are ringing, praise and worship is playing on the radio, kids are asking you to do something, the TV is on, and you can barely even begin to think what you're going to fix for supper let-alone hear from God on the big things and even the small things. Yes we live our lives in the bellies of these fish because we choose not to hear or listen. We may hear, but we don't listen (there is a difference between the two).

Let me ask you this? What is it that you feel like God has been saying but you're afraid to get out of your fish? Is He telling you to leave your job (you know who you are out there...yes this is for my emotional twin sister in Beckley). Is he telling you to spend more time in the Word so that you will be prepared for the next trial? Is He telling you to buy a seemingly insignificant fan for your bedroom so you'll get the rest you'll need in order to be productive and fruitful for His Kingdom? I don't know, but YOU DO! Stop suppressing His voice and start following it instead...I guarantee you'll sleep a lot better, with or without the fan, knowing that you're walking in obedience to Him.