Sunday 10 July 2011

Installing a hotline

I'm feeling confused. I'm wondering what to do. I have a couple of decisions to make and I keep asking you what you think but you don't seem to be committing yourself. 

Other people seem to be guided by you but  I'm not hearing you. I know people who seem to have some sort of hotline to your Divine Ear, and seem to chat with you in a talking/listening sort of way but I don't. Well, I know that you do communicate with me; I know that you do let me know your thoughts sometimes, but I've never asked you a question and felt that you gave me an answer.

Now, I am aware of my lack of insight here and this may very well be one of those Daddy/child moments where you are shaking your head in amusement at my failure to grasp how very much you do for me. Is this like my daughter saying to me,

'Mummy, you don't listen to me!' ?

I have my suspicions but the more I think about it the more I can't think of a time when I said,


'God, what should I do? A, or B?'

and you actually told me.

Is it always me asking the wrong question? Is it your modus operandi to simply stay quiet until I realise that the real question is something completely different? If so, can you let me know so that I can back off a bit and stop pestering you and stop myself from agonising about it? I have time sensitive decisions to make (or at least they seem time sensitive to me) and if you don't think that I should be concerning myself with either of the possible outcomes, then you could, if you were so inclined, save me the waking up in the night and wondering?

Go on. You know you want to.

I'm just not by nature a decisive person. I don't find decision making easy. You made me that way! I need to explore options, check out alternatives and have all the facts before I feel comfortable making a decision. If I have to make a decision quickly I invariably make the wrong one. But this time, like so many others, I'm asking you, 'Should I do this, or this?' and you're maintaining a dignified silence. Or some sort of silence, anyway. A wise silence. Is it that you think I can make this one on my own? Do you have confidence in me to do the Right Thing? Or are you testing me to see if I choose the Right Thing? Or is there no Right Thing and you don't mind which direction I go? Or is it all irrelevant and you know something I don't?

Now there's a daft thing to say. Of course you know something I don't.

Look, I know you do a good line in the hindsight thing. I know that so many times in my life I have seen your hand in the way things turned out, the decisions I made, the people you put in my way - but most of those are years down the line when events have played themselves out already. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder in a decade's time and saying, 'Ah. So that was what God wanted me to do, ' because quite probably, with my confidence levels right now, the next sentence would be, 'Pity I didn't do it.'

I'm floundering around throwing down fleeces, ('If such and such a person says such and such to me tonight in church I will do such and such') and waking up in the small hours wondering what to do for the best. I'm wondering what will happen if I just avoid making a decision at all; how many people will I let down, what will I miss out on, what will I do wrong? If I make the wrong decision, how difficult will it be to undo? I realise I'm dwelling on the negative, but what do you expect? I wouldn't be me, otherwise, would I?

I understand that the world will go on turning if I don't get it right. I understand that I could make a complete mess of the next year of my life and you would sort it all out without shouting at me. I know that I can rely on you whatever the outcome. I just want to get it right, is that OK?

Teach me to hear your voice, Lord God. Not just to see your majesty in the rainbows and sunsets and your creativity and beauty in the birds and the scenery, not just your comfort in the sleep you send for me and your love in my friends and my family. Help me to hear your voice of guidance. Give me more faith. Give me more perception. Give me more wisdom. More discernment.

More whatever it takes to install that hotline.

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