The Bible is full of regular, everyday folks
who heard the voice of God. They were usually quite busy, going about their
everyday jobs like keeping wolves from eating their sheep, when God would
single them out and say something profound that would end up being historical.
“Old age isnʼt an excuse, Noah. Get down to the
local hardware store, because you really need to build this giant boat. If you
Google the weather, youʼll see itʼs about to change.”
Those who were faithful and righteous were
usually quick in their obedience, too.
My friend, Katie, hears God speak quite often.
She once told me that the Lord had encouraged her to go on ahead and lay
herself off work. As in, she was quite certain that her friend, Jesus, said, “Tell
your boss youʼre laying yourself off from the company, and that you wonʼt be
taking a paycheck from them any longer, while the company is struggling with
some things.” Katie, being one who is quiet enough to know when itʼs the
Lord speaking to her and when itʼs just a pesky mosquito buzzing in her ear,
did just this. I was stunned. I would have argued relentlessly with Jesus and
said, “Seriously? Lay myself off? Because you know thereʼs this thing
called a mortgage, right? And you might not have to pay those in Heaven, but I
have to pay it right now, and WHERE WILL THE MONEY FOR STARBUCKS COME FROM?”
Iʼd like to say that my first instinct would have been faithful obedience, but
I know myself. My first instinct would be to fight what I thought couldnʼt be
right.
Katie laid herself off work. In the end, Jesus
showed off a little bit and worked everything out for the better. Things didnʼt
go back to how they WERE before Katie obeyed – things catapulted themselves
into being even better than they had been.
Thatʼs kind of Jesusʼ MO. His Method of
Operation. How He does things.
But your heart has to be still enough to hear
Him speak, and you have to understand that sometimes He asks people to do
strange things. In the book of Judges, Gideon didnʼt think he was capable of
fighting a massive army with 300 soldiers, but God asked him to do it, and he
did. And through Gideonʼs obedience, the Lord shone through, and a small army
conquered one that was believed to be undefeatable.
A few years ago, I had a strange request made
of me. Iʼd like to say that I blindly jumped to do exactly as I was called to
do, but I didnʼt.
My husband and I know a family. A few years
ago, they were a young married couple with a pack of very young children. They
had children of every age, it seemed, running all over the place. The husband
was very outgoing and friendly. He was easy to like, his sense of humor was
incredible, and he was downright friendly. Although strikingly beautiful, his
wife was the exact opposite. She was hard to get to know because she didnʼt
talk much. When she did talk, her conversations were usually full of judgement
toward others, and how her tribe of children were so much better than everyone
elseʼs children. She was rude, she was unfriendly, and frankly, I wasnʼt
interested in getting to know her very well, because she was quick to present a
cold shoulder towards everyone she met. She always presented the feeling that
she was much better than the world around her, so she couldnʼt be bothered to
befriend those beneath her.
A few years ago, they bought a house and gutted
it. They took that house down to the shell. They designed a floor plan for it,
and they were going to turn it into something amazing. The husband was actually
quite handy in the line of carpentry and construction, so he was doing the bulk
of the work himself. His wife was helping, and somehow they were managing to
get it all done while little kids ran wild everywhere.
On one particularly cold, winter day, I woke up
and my VERY FIRST thought of the day was that I needed to take dinner to this
family. The usual list of reasons for bringing dinner to someone didnʼt apply.
They hadnʼt just delivered a new baby... no one close to them had recently
died... no one was sick. And yet, all day long my heart was heavy with the
thought that I was supposed to take them a meal for dinner that day.
But do you know what?
I didnʼt like the wife. She had never shown any
kind of friendliness to me, or to anyone, really. She was snooty and aloof, and
I figured that sheʼd be just fine cooking dinner for her many children that
evening. I didnʼt WANT to take dinner to her.
I made a big pot of soup in the crockpot for
our familyʼs supper.
Iʼd look at it often throughout the day and
feel like I was supposed to load that crockpot up and deliver it to them. I
just shook my head, because NO WAY.
Our family ate the soup. Even though cooking is
my least favorite domestic chore, Iʼll just go on record and say that this soup
was FANTASTIC! Paula Deen would have stood up and applauded me wildly for it.
Martha Stewart would have put her fingers in her mouth and whistled her
approval.
The temperatures dipped well below zero that
night.
The next morning, I woke up again thinking
about this family. My first thought of that day was, “I was supposed to make
them dinner last night.”
So this is what I did. I huffed around my
kitchen. I slammed a few measuring cups onto my countertop. I slammed cupboard
doors. And in a state of angry irritation, I remade the same pot of soup, from
scratch, and tossed it into my crockpot. My husband asked what I was doing. I
growled, “Iʼm making soup for THAT FAMILY!” Late that afternoon, I loaded up
the hot soup, and I drove to the house that they were doing an extensive remodel
on. It was a ways out of town, and I had a hard time finding it in the dark,
but I did.
I knocked on their door.
Their kitchen didnʼt exist. Oh, there was a
spot FOR the kitchen, but no kitchen was there. They were in the process of
mudding the drywall in the kitchen area. Their new stove and refrigerator were
in giant boxes in their garage. Theyʼd finished a bathroom already, and it was
beautiful. The tile work was amazing, and this was where they washed their
dishes -- right there in that bathroom sink. There was a microwave plugged into
an outlet on the floor of where the living room would be. There was a
dorm-sized refrigerator plugged in across the room. They had no tile or carpet
on the floor; it was just subfloors, and the kids were using markers and
Crayons to decorate it.
The wife approached me and said, “What are you
doing out on a cold night like this?”
I smiled. “I just thought maybe yʼall could use
some dinner, so I brought over a big pot of soup and a loaf of French bread.”
She took the soup from me and said, “I already
have chili in our crockpot for dinner tonight. I donʼt know when weʼll get to
this soup.” She walked off, set the pot of soup on the top of a cardboard box,
and picked up a crying baby.
The husband came up to me and said, “Thank you
for dinner. Wow! What a surprise. Itʼs really too bad you didnʼt show up LAST
NIGHT with the soup! What was it? Six degrees below zero last night? The
battery in our mini van died, and I didnʼt have any way to jump it last night,
and our neighbors were gone. The kids were starving. Weʼd planned to just get
burgers in town last night, but we couldnʼt GET to town, so we fed the kids the
packages of graham crackers and saltines that we had for their snacks earlier
in the day. THAT was our dinner. Crazy, huh? And then this morning, our
neighbors were back. I got the mini vanʼs battery jumped, and my wife went to
town to get stuff to make chili. But man! Last nightʼs dinner was slim
pickings!”
Yes, God often speaks to plain, everyday
people.
But do you know what? His work wonʼt be accomplished if those regular men and women donʼt take His instructions and obey them. I have no idea what would have happened, had I showed up with a crockpot of hot soup the night before. All I know is that this family saw an ill-timed meal brought to them. It didnʼt show up when they needed it most, because I wasnʼt obedient.
But do you know what? His work wonʼt be accomplished if those regular men and women donʼt take His instructions and obey them. I have no idea what would have happened, had I showed up with a crockpot of hot soup the night before. All I know is that this family saw an ill-timed meal brought to them. It didnʼt show up when they needed it most, because I wasnʼt obedient.
Tammy is a wife and mother of 2 children, ages 13 and 1 1/2. She has recently joined MOPS in support of entering the baby and toddler years once again, blessedly, but somewhat unexpectedly. Her presence at our MOPS meetings is a comfort, her love for Jesus a special and hefty gift, and her sense of humor a brilliant light. She keeps us all laughing at the beauty and difficulty of motherhood through her personal blog Jedi Mama: Life at a Jedi House. We are hoping to hear from her often here on the Morning MOPS Blog!
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