Many Christians complain they don’t feel the presence of God in
their lives. For some, it could be that they’ve never fully
accepted Christ. For others, they can’t discern the Holy Spirit
from the rest of the voices in their heads. Still, many Christians
follow the voice that tells them what they want to hear.
Some Christians believe that God’s reticence nature causes sin,
because if he were more of a presence in their lives, they wouldn’t
sin in the first place. Many bemoan God’s lack of direction for
their lives, choosing to blame the long periods of seeming silence
as punishment for sin. We’re all sinners and though we suffer the
consequences of sin; it isn’t God who turns away from us, it is us
who turns away from him. God uses the consequences of sin and the
painful circumstances of our lives to shape and develop our
character to enable us to fulfill his will for our lives.
God, through the Holy Spirit, speaks to us daily. It’s this
small, quiet voice that reminds us that we forgot to mail the
mortgage payment; or to call a friend who we discover is sick or
hurting. It’s this voice that makes suggestions, provides
conviction, prompts us to take a different path and encourages us
to apologize for an unkind act or word.
It’s not the voice that tells us to be creative with our tax
returns, the voice that encourages passionate admiration of the
opposite sex or the voice that tells us what we deserve and what is
our due.
The voice of the Holy Spirit never contradicts the word of God,
but many Christians don’t get it because they don’t read the word
of God and, therefore, are easily led into sin; often mistaking
good intentions for Godly behavior. The voice of the Holy Spirit
never encourages us to take credit for Godly outcomes, for Godly
outcomes are always credited to God. God gets the glory so that
others may come to know him and, bottom line, it should never be
about us.
You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in
charge of many things.
-Matthew 25:21B.
God pursues us, constantly giving us chances to be faithful and
to put our trust in him. Some of us are so busy trying to
accomplish God-size tasks that that we miss the small, seemingly
insignificant opportunities that He sets before us to train and
develop us. We’re so quick to act that, more often then not, we end
up with putting the cart before the horse; the outcome before the
process.
It’s through obedience to God in accepting small requests that
we begin to build the foundation of great faithfulness.
It’s through trusting him in the small things that we see the
tree within the forest, the tread in the tapestry and eternal life
in worldly death. We must retrain our eyes to focus on the process
of serving God, not the outcome of serving God.