Conversations from the Heart

“Let’s see, on Monday we can eat the lasagna…,” the woman began, trying to engage her distracted husband in menu planning for the coming week as they unloaded the groceries from their cart onto the belt in my checkout lane. He was more interested in getting something to eat now, as he stopped her twice to ask if she wanted first a pop from the cooler at the end of the aisle and then a candy bar from the racks beside them. After the second interruption she responded resignedly, “That’s okay. I’ll talk to you about this later…”, and she and I shared a laugh about his clear lack of focus on the topic at hand.

We all know from experience how frustrating it can be to try to talk to someone whose mind is absorbed by something else, be it a game on the television screen, an article in a newspaper spread out before them, or a pressing problem on the job. To be 50% involved in a conversation is to be 100% rude, and yet we’ve all been on the wrong side of that equation before, myself included. It’s bad enough when we act that way with a spouse or a friend, but all too often we’re likewise distracted in our conversations with God.

I’ve noticed it myself recently in my morning devotional times. Rarely does God come to the table without a topic at hand that He’s ready to discuss. And while I may listen attentively at first, soon I’m thinking about what happened yesterday at work, what I want to write on the open journal page before me, or the list of things I want to accomplish that morning before heading out the door. In short, while I’m physically present, my mind and heart are clearly not connected to the conversation that God desires to have with me.

At times when I’m the one trying to communicate a thought with my distracted spouse, I know that he hears me talking, but I‘m painfully aware that he‘s not listening. So I’ve eventually stopped speaking, just to see how long it will be before he notices. I’ve noticed that sometimes God does the same. It’s a move that never fails to get my attention, for sure. While my verbal inactivity might be a welcome respite to my husband’s overworked ears, I need to hear God’s thoughts on everything that pertains to me, and His silence is simply more than I can bear.

These thoughts come to me just weeks before Valentine’s Day, when the promotional display at the front of the grocery store is laden with little boxes of Sweethearts candy, those little bits of heart-shaped sugar, each of which has a sweet sentiment printed on top in one or two words. A nearby sign proclaims them to be the official candy of love. All I know is that they are incredibly addicting, and that having sampled one or two, I return for handfuls of the same until the little box lies empty and crumpled in a nearby trash receptacle. I simply can’t resist them.

Neither can I resist the love of God, who uses the exact same method to bring my attention back to Him. He speaks His love to me a word at a time, knowing that those few syllables will never satisfy me and I’ll return to Him again and again to hear more of what He has to say on the subject at hand until I’ve finally understood the message in its entirety. It’s when I listen with my heart, not just my ears, that the conversation can have life-changing results.

That’s why this subject is important to God. It’s not just our lives that He’s trying to change. If we’re not hearing from Him, we likewise have nothing of real value to pass on to those around us who listen to us on a regular basis. Composer Nico Muhly once said about his work, “The first thing I ask myself with every piece: Is it preferable to silence?” And perhaps that’s a question we should ask ourselves before we open our mouths, our laptops, or the message app on our phones to “speak“, as well.

Much as the shopper in my line at the store was trying to discuss what they were to eat each day, God likewise has a daily meal plan to nourish us spiritually, conversations from His heart to ours that come to us through our ears rather than our mouths. Maybe it’s time we truly listened to what He has to say.

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:15 MKJV)

Hot Spot

“Nice you could make it today, Part Time,” the bass player said to me as we both got our instruments ready for an early morning worship practice. He smiled as he said it and I laughed at the new nickname, then protested indignantly that it had been my work schedule and not any lack of desire on my part that had kept me from recent mid-week rehearsals. In fact, it was due to a change to full time status on my job that led me to become part time in my worship team attendance.

He wasn’t buying it. As a foreman on his construction job he works overtime trying to get all his paperwork done. Then he has a home to cake care of, a son to hug, and a girlfriend to charm. I often wonder how he manages to make it to church at all, much less be one that leads the way in the passionate pursuit of God.

I honestly don’t think my friend Chad’s use of the new moniker was a reflection of anything more than his desire to tease. Yet he is also one who understands how the Lord can take a casual comment and use it to effect life-changing results. God has a double interest in doing so. He wants to change our lives for the better, of course. But then He wants to use us to change the lives of those around us. And with time growing short He needs full-time employees to get the job done.

Some of us stir uneasily at the thought that God wants more of us than we feel we’re currently able to give. Stressed to the breaking point already with too much to do, we ask ourselves in frustration, what more does God want?

God answered that question for me through a story Chad shared in a recent church meeting. He’d had a long day at work only to find it could get worse when he got home. His roommate had been cooking his supper, leaving a burner turned on the stove and then inadvertently setting his work gloves down on the hot surface. In an attempt to put out the resultant flames he grabbed the fire extinguisher which splattered molten rubber all over the kitchen. Such was the mess that awaited my friend when he walked in his front door.

I thought the story was especially appropriate to Chad’s life, and not because he’s so “hot” that women melt at the sight of him, as he frequently claims. The truth of the matter is that he lives with all of his spiritual burners turned on high. You wouldn’t know it to look at him - a slow moving, slow talking kind of guy. But spend some time listening to him and you soon realize that he has various projects and ministry efforts simmering on all parts of his spiritual stove.

But if God is calling us to more and we feel we have no burners to spare for additional pots, how do we respond to His call? I looked at my stove and realized that one of the burners has a “part time” and “full time” status as well! I can turn the control so that only the inner ring gets hot, or move it the other way so that the outer ring will light up as well, expanding the effective cooking area on that portion of the stove. Perhaps God is not asking us to put in more hours, but to put more passion and power in the hours we’re already dedicating to His service, making a more productive use of our time.

What is accomplished so easily with the turn of a dial on a stove takes a little more effort in our spiritual lives. A little while later I was randomly reading blogs on the internet when I came across one that addressed a similar problem. A writer was detailing her difficulty with concentration during the hours she had allotted herself to write, realizing that she was only actually putting words in her computer for about one third of the scheduled time. The rest of those precious moments were wasted on distractions such as music she listened to as she typed, the playfulness of her cat, the pull of the internet, and the conversation of her spouse, among other things. It was a wonder she got anything done at all. To combat the problem she found a free application for her computer called a “focus booster”, which was a visual timer that allowed her to be constantly aware of how much time she had left to work and thus kept her on task until her next scheduled break.

Maybe an awareness of the passage of time is God’s solution to the spiritual dilemma we face, as well. The first step to getting more out of the hours we devote to the Lord is to realize that we haven’t much time left to accomplish what needs to be done. And far from needing a downloadable app to focus my attention, I simply can’t escape the visual images on my computer, my television screen, and in the pages of my newspaper to know that spiritual seasons are moving rapidly along, and we need to be fully on task at all times. My practice sessions with the band have taught me that if I can only be part time in attendance I need to be full time in attention while I’m there. The same is true in any effort put forth on God’s behalf.

Unlike a stove, however, our spiritual lives shouldn’t have an on/off notch on our mental dials. Instead of giving two hours here and there to operate in our callings, it could be that God is calling us to a different type of worship “practice“, that of actively experiencing His presence in our lives all day long and on into the night. He is always on task, and amazingly I am discovering that I can be, as well, letting my spirit sing worship songs in the back of my mind while I’m busy with other things, my heart praying constantly without my lips actually shaping the words, and my tongue rehearsing his love and goodness in the words that do come out of my mouth.

The worship team’s sole purpose is to connect with hearts in the congregation so they will be receptive to the message from the pastor when he stands up to preach. Individually our goal is the same, to strike a chord with somebody in the mass of people who pass through our lives so they’ll be ready to listen when the Master comes knocking and begins to speak.

“Speak, O Lord, for Your servant is listening”

(1 Samuel 3:10 NIV)