An Experiment

His name shall be called "Emmanuel" -- God With Us (Is.7)

 

Jesus said, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (Jn. 7).

 

There are so many things Jesus said that we read or hear, but do not "do" to find out whether or not they are true.  Or we acknowledge that Jesus' words are true, but they have no impact on our lives -- it is just an inspiration of the moment, but we go on without change.

 

Perhaps Jesus' most powerful revelation to us was the Love of the Father for us.  He told us to call Him "Abba/ Daddy," and He told us that the Father knows what we need ahead of time.  Most of us, though, tend to live our lives as if we did not have a loving Father.  One of the joys of my life has been to "experiment" with the word of God to find out for myself whether it is true or not.  And I have to say that experimenting with God is the greatest adventure that life offers.

 

I challenge anyone for one week to live as if it were true that God cares about us, that He is intimately "with us" in every circumstance of our lives.  One way to do this is to sit each morning with a calendar or notebook and lift our hearts and minds to God.  As we jot down the things that concern us this day -- or the tasks we should do for the day -- we can act as if God were reading our notes, and as if He were the Senior Partner in the enterprise of our lives.  We can act as if He really cared about the smallest detail, and as if He would advise us about what we should do, where we should go, or to whom we should speak during the day.  I think we would be absolutely amazed that God would play our game with us -- though to Him, it is not a "game," but a living truth! 

 

Our awareness of His Presence will be intensified as our eyes are opened to what He does -- so subtly that we do not notice it unless we are looking.   After the young mother (Dinette) had prayed for me to receive the Holy Spirit in the hospital, she was released to go home with her child.  Several days later, after I had returned home also, I was reading my bible at 9:30 one evening.  I kept hearing a voice in my mind saying, "CAll Dinette."  My reason took over, thinking of all the reasons one did not call a new mother at 9:30 pm. ( In fact, to this day, I don't call ANYONE at 9:30 pm. )  But the voice was insistent:  "CALL Dinette!"  It would not leave me alone.  On top of my "good sense," I was embarrassed to call her when I had nothing to say, really, and who calls that late at night to ask about how the baby is doing?

 

Finally, I yielded to the voice and quelled my rational mind, thinking there must be a good reason for me to call.  As soon as she answered, she said, "Wait a minute," and put the phone down (this was before cell phones, and even before portable phones).  When she picked up the phone again, she said, "Thank God you called me!"  She had finally gotten the baby to sleep and put the nipples on the stove in boiling water to sterilize them.  Then, exhausted, she went to take a shower, forgetting that the nipples were on the stove.  Her husband was out of town; when I called, she had to go into the kitchen to answer the phone, and then she saw that the water was almost all gone from the pot.  Another minute or so, and she would have had no nipples for nighttime bottles for the baby.  I'm not sure even if she could get to the store, that she would have found one open that late at night, since she lived in a small town on the West Bank.

 

That was my first "experiment" in listening to the voice of God-- or really, even in hearing the voice of God.  But it was a powerful one, and reflecting on it when I hung up, I was shaken at the realization of how "close" to us God really is, how much He cares about the so-called "little" things of our lives.  To Dinette, that was not at all a little thing, but could have been a huge thing--waking up a baby she had spent hours trying to get to sleep, putting her in the car, and trying to find an open drugstore.  To most people, however, God is too "busy" with wars, draughts, famines, etc. to bother with the "little things."

 

The only way to know the truth is not through our reasoning, but through our "doing," as Jesus said, "If anyone chooses to do the will of God, he will find out whether my words are true."  We don't know how to "do the will of God" at first, but if we begin acting as if He were truly present and active in the smallest details of our lives, we will find out His will, and then it will be easy to do it, knowing how much He cares for us.