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Is God Getting Your Attention?
Jon Burgess“At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or command grasshoppers to devour your crops, or send plagues among you. Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to every prayer made in this place.” 2 Chronicles 7:13-15
I have heard and read and memorized 1 Chronicles 7:14. I have preached it as a call to action, a promise from God, and if/then reality. I never paid much attention to 1 Chronicles 7:13. What was the catalyst to consecration? What was the situation that caught the people's attention? Bugs, boils, and barren lands. We can get so steeped in our sin the only way to wake us up is shut us down, cut the power, dam the river and call us home. If you think these attention grabbers sound familiar you're right! These are the very things God used to get the attention of Egypt before leading His people to the Promised Land. If instead of remaining stubborn like Pharaoh we humble ourselves and pray and seek God's face then God can stop at 1, 2, or 3 wake up calls instead of going ten rounds as He did with Egypt. Better yet, what if we walked in a perpetual place of humility and grace and seeking God's face? What if refused to ignore the places of sin and compromise in our lives? What if we were quick to repent instead of quick to self-defense? What if God didn't have grab our attention through pain because we were giving our attention in passion pursuit of His purposes?
Nothing gets my attention faster then then a cockroach the size of a B-52 Bomber flies through my house. It doesn't matter if I'm sitting at dinner with the family, watching TV, nodding off to a nights slumber, once I hear that buzz by my ear I spring into action. In fact we started noticing more and more of these roaches in our home. We were cleaning every crack and crevice and yet it seemed like they just kept coming. Then, finally, we found the source. Inside the pantry up in the corner was hole. It turns out this hole led to the outside of our rented house. Our pantry was filled with lunch snacks for the boys. It might as well have been a four lane freeway leading right into our house with a big neon sign that read: Roaches Welcome Here. These buggers were living rent free in my home and eating us out of house and home and stealing our peace while in our home. Now that we saw the problem I found the solution. It's called "Great Stuff"! Great name by the way. You can get a can of it at Home Depot or Loews. Then you insert the screw-on straw and start spraying this Great Stuff into any gap, crack or opening. It then hardens permanently. No more roaches in the pantry. No more stolen snacks. In the Kingdom of God humility is the Great Stuff. God can take us high when we are willing to get low. God allows situations in our lives that are difficult to get our attention, to get us back to Him. He's calling us to the great stuff of humility to fill in the gaps of sin, compromise, and pride. When we give Him our attention and our affection then sin is no longer a distraction and we are free to move with Him!
I'm looking at the areas of lack and stress and struggle in a different light this morning. These are roaches that reveal a hole in my heart. This is a place I need to fall on my knees and invite You in to. Just as I wouldn't let a roach land on my face and stay there I'm not going to let these situations in my life remain the same. Im getting on my face before You and crying out with David in Psalm 139:23 "Search me, O God, and know my hear; test me and know my anxious thoughts." You have my undivided attention.
