I was cut to the core this evening by a sermon from Erwin McManus called ‘Prayer: Spiritual Activism.‘ He tells of his 13 year old son who was continually asking Erwin how you could hear from God, or what it was like to hear God’s voice. During the summer, Erwin’s son went to camp and got in trouble for threatening to beat up another camper. His son refused to acknowledge that he was wrong and seek the other boy’s forgiveness. The camp called Erwin to come take his son home.
When Erwin arrived, he asked his son if he would ask the other boy for forgiveness. His son said no. He asked his son why and he said “Dad, you said I never had to do this Christian stuff if I didn’t want to and I don’t want to. I want to go home.” Erwin told his son that if he wanted to go home he should go pack his bags, hoping the boy would relent. His son went and packed. When he was done, he came back with the bags. Erwin told him to load them in the car if he wanted to leave, hoping again that he would relent. He didn’t.
After the car was loaded he took his son to a place in the trees and sat down with him. He told his son, ‘You know you should really stay here and work this out.” His son said “I don’t want to stay. I’m not going to.” Erwin asked, “Is there any voice inside of you telling you what to do?” “Yes,” his son said. “What is it telling you to do?” Erwin asked. His son said, “It’s telling me to stay here and work it out.” Erwin asked him, “Can you tell what that voice is?” And his son said, “Yes it’s God, but I’m still not going.”
Is this not us? What is God’s will we ask? And yet we are unwilling to obey. When we have not honored the gift of hearing from God we wonder why He will not continue to speak. As it says in Hebrews our disobedience causes our heart to grow hard and our ears to grow dull. We continue in this process until we are living as if we were deaf and God were silent. Then we curse Him for His silence.
As G. K. Chesterson says, obedience is the opener of eyes.
