My Trademark....

Stop for a second and think to yourself....."What is my trademark move?" Is there something in your life that comes to mind that defines you; Something that when others think of it, immediately associate you with? For me it is the accounting, the video games, the funny comments, the guy with something to say for everything (though not always good....gotta Bite my Tongue), just to name a few, I am sure (hope) people think other things of me, but what about the bad? What bad thing is your trademark move? Pride? Lust? The feeling of dejection you get whenever you pray and sometimes you focus more on what you are praying for and less on what God wants to give you?

That is my trademark move...guilty as charged...

Yesterday I read something in a devotional a friend of mine emailed me, it went like this:

Every fact that the disciples stated was right; but the inferences they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that savours of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If depression and oppression visit me, I am to blame; God is not, nor is anyone else. Dejection springs from one of two sources—I have either satisfied a lust or I have not. Lust means—I must have it at once. Spiritual lust makes me demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Who gives the answer. What have I been trusting God would do? And to-day—the immediate present—is the third day, and He has not done it, therefore I imagine I am justified in being dejected and in blaming God. Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected. Dejection is a sign of sickness, and the same thing is true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.

We look for visions from heaven, for earthquakes and thunders of God’s power (the fact that we are dejected proves that we do), and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us. If we will do the duty that lies nearest, we shall see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized. - "The Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chamber.

It really spoke to me. Ever prayed to God and demanded He answer you? Who are we tell Him to answer us? If anything, we should be thanking Him for even listening to us. I am a wretch without Him, and yet I sometimes am guilty of demanding an answer, rather than seeking Him to give me an answer. We can't focus on the idea that God answers prayer, it has to be what it says in the devotional: "The meaning of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not the answer."

I read a devotional the other day while I was at work about not looking for the burning bush. Sometimes we get so caught up in the idea of signs and meanings behind actions, when sometimes, God doesn't use the giant cloud writing airplane in the sky, sometimes it is just the simplest person, the softest whisper, the faintest cry, that is the guidance and the answer we are looking for.

I am so guilty of it. Of looking for the answer and being so consumed by the answer that sometimes I forget what the question was in the first place. Who am I to demand?

This one hit me today like a ton of spiritual bricks, something I should work on, but something I wanted to share, because I know we all can sometimes get caught up in the wants and needs, that we forget the One...