Epiphany

You have two teenagers. You’ve provided a nice house, great food, clothes and a car for them to drive. They have the privilege of going to school every day, participating in sports, the band, clubs, have friends over, anticipate a college education gratis…just for being your kid.

You drive car pools, attend a myriad of sporting events camping out for hours at a time at soccer fields, basketball courts, swim meets. You organize play groups, sign up for PTA committees, join the booster club, chaperone youth group camps, cheer their victories, mourn their defeats. In your spare time you cook feasts to fill up not only your children but the friends that seem to live at your house, you clean house, wash, fold, put away clothes, plant seasonal flowers, decorate for Christmas, take it all down, give birthday parties, get up in the middle of the night to hold feverish heads that are throwing up. And work full time.

Your kid is BLESSED.

It’s Thursday night after a grueling day, grueling week. Your kid got home two hours before you did. Everyone is hungry. You look at your teenager and say, “Honey, please put a pot of water on to boil for pasta and set the table.”

Let’s say you have two kids. You will get two different responses to this request. One will whine and carry on about how tired he is, how much he has to do, how he did it last night, it’s not fair, he doesn’t like pasta, why don’t we ever have anything good, nobody cares what he really likes to eat…but he eventually does it because he’s your firstborn child.

Second kid comes over, puts his big arm around you and says, “Aw Mom, go wash your face and put some sweats on….you’ve had a hard day…but you know what? I love you!” And you turn around and walk to your bedroom and he turns around and walks to his. The pot is still in the cabinet and the table is clean as a whistle.

At the beginning of his reign, God appeared to Solomon (chapter 9) and told him to ask for whatever he wanted and He’d give it to him. Solomon said wisdom and God made him incredibly wise but also made him an incredibly wealthy man. 1 Kings 10 is a must read for a definition of opulence…his was unmatched. God warned him up front however, if he walked before him and kept his commands, He'd establish his throne forever…but…if he did not, if he followed other gods, He'd cut off Israel and the temple he built would become ruins and it would be because Solomon left Him and followed and worshiped other gods.

It was a slow slide, but Solomon became addicted to women, married 700 (so he must have also been insane) and began to worship their gods. Great start, good intentions, disastrous ending. He stopped listening, stopped worshiping, stopped obeying God. His focus moved to his idol…women, and he aligned with them and their gods.

I walked away from this story chasing the rabbits of idols and listening.

We’re such “good” Christians in the South. We read our Bibles, go to church, get in a Bible study, do the homework, hang out with Christian friends….we just ooze this stuff.

But are we listening…much less obeying? Does God speak to us individually? He did to Solomon. He appeared twice and Solomon knew beyond a shadow of doubt that it was God and what He said was pointedly directed to him alone. He did not stand there and ask, “Are you talking to me?” He knew God was speaking to him.

God had said specifically in Deuteronomy not to marry women outside the nation of Israel and He even gave them His reasons…”They will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods…then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you!” In case Solomon missed the Deuteronomy passage, God appeared to him and told him one on one not to follow other gods. Pointed. Black and white.

How about us? We’re quietly reading…come across a verse and it just lights up, neon lime green, blinking. Our jaw drops. How in the world did God know that’s exactly what I needed? I look at the date…how did He time this so I would read this today, right in the middle of what’s happening in my life? You know it’s for you because you tell the first person you run into about this verse. You’re so excited you can’t even get your words out without them falling all over each other. She’s standing there with her eyes all squinty, slack jawed, looking confused. “Isn’t this incredible?” you ask. “Yeah….right...it’s….something.” It was not for her, it was you.

Back to the quiet time. You read the verse. It begins to light up. You close the book and sit quietly reflecting on what you’ve read and it’s like God is saying something like, “Call Susan.” “Eat what I tell you to today…listen to Me before every bite.” “Go to Honduras with that group in June.” “Send $50 for this project.” “Stop right now and give him to Me.” Ever had that happen?

I have. It’s 5:30 in the morning. Dark. I’m praying and I just know it’s Him. Or it’s 6 a.m. and I’m in the middle of page 20, looking up a reference to write down an answer and the verse lights up and it was written just for me on today, January 3, 2011.

Do I turn on all the lights, find a pen and paper and write it down? Do I post it on my refrigerator and on the dash of my car and on my computer so it’s scrawling across and I can’t miss it? Do I take it as an actual “word from God” as if the President of the United States called and said, “Hey Mary Ann, I was thinking about you today and would appreciate it if you’d do this for me….”

Or (and I speak from personal experience here) do I marvel, wonder, “Isn’t that something,” and put it on my please consider mental computer and go brush my teeth? Does it penetrate my thoughts at times during the day? Do I remember it at night before I fall asleep and mentally think, “Oh yeah, I need to do that tomorrow,” as I drift off to sleep?

Am I like teenager #1…whose parents have absolutely blessed his socks off, done abundantly beyond all he could ask or think (if you were to ask the millions of teenagers who live in poverty around the world… lavish opulence they cannot even imagine)…do I whine and complain? “She’ll think I’m nuts if I call out of the clear blue sky.” “Honduras? I don’t want to squat over a hole in the ground to pee much less poop like that for a WEEK.” “Let me balance my checkbook and see if I can squeeze out $50.” “I’ll give him to you after I finish reaming him out.” I don’t know if I ever had the nerve to actually SAY those things but I've certainly thought them.

Or am I like teenager #2. “I just love you so much, Lord!” and I turn around and walk into my day, never giving it another thought.

If my nursing license needs renewing, I write myself a note. If a major bill is due, I make a big sign and put it on my computer. If the kitchen ceiling is leaking, I’m all over that until I get someone out to look at it.

So if God Almighty tells me something clearly, why am I so impressed at 6 a.m. and then at 10, it’s fled my mind? Is it not a priority? Was He not serious? Was it just a suggestion?

This has all been a real epiphany. It’s kind of like my sister telling me when I was young, that I always sat around with my mouth hanging open. She demonstrated and I looked like a idiot. I had no idea I was doing that. I was totally unaware. Of course she also tacked on, “If you keep this up, your upper lip is just going to disappear and you’ll just have one big fat bottom lip.” I actually believed her.

Back to the epiphany…once I realized I was treating God’s thoughts as suggestions and what an affront to God! I began to write down clear impressions from my reading or the silence of that early morning quiet time and have taken them quite differently than I used to. They are written down, posted, done.

I know this sounds elementary….amazing what does not compute when you think you’ve covered all the bases. It has definitely changed my day.