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Topic: Whispers (01/26/04)
TITLE: Speak to Me Softly By Glenda Lagerstedt 01/30/04 |
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I was spending way too much time seated mindlessly at the computer playing solitaire. It always started the same way: “Just two or three quick games,” I would tell myself. “And that will be it.” However, the reality was that it was always ‘just one more’ and then still ‘just one more.’ It was adding up to a lot of time. A nagging inner battle reminded me that this precious commodity would be better spent using the gift of writing that God had given me, for His glory.
The above paragraph is not my story and yet it is my story. Let me explain. Though the words I have used are my own, they are actually my recollection of another writer’s words I read in a magazine. My jaw had dropped and my heart had skipped a beat when I read it. How had my own exact inner battle got onto those pages in black and white as plain as could be anyway?! I hadn’t told a soul!
In fact, I had tried very hard to keep it even from myself by pushing away the nagging feelings that I did indeed have time to write if I indeed wrote instead of playing solitaire. (Please note that the magazine article even had the name of the game right.) How close to the mark is that?
In Isaiah 30:21 (KJV) we read, “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it.” God’s word also says that He speaks in a still small voice. For weeks I’d had a sense of guilt because I was saying there was no time to write yet knowing that I found plenty of time to play. It was a still small voice, just a whisper, and it was easy to think that maybe it wasn’t God after all. Then He whispered again through someone else’s parallel experience, “Glenda, let me rephrase that.”
Through the obedience and openness of that other person I understood completely in a moment that He had been speaking clearly to me. How I glory in His faithfulness despite my own unfaithfulness. And how glad I am He didn’t yell.