Escape from Gilligan’s Island: God Listens

Well, it’s Tuesday. Not sure what hap­pened to Monday. *grum­ble* *com­plain* *looks around sheep­ish­ly* Sunday, Pastor Jeff con­tin­ued the ser­mon series Escape from Gilliagan’s Island based on Exodus by look­ing at how God lis­tens and responds with love, even when we are grum­bling and com­plain­ing.
Now, I had some severe pain dur­ing the ser­mon so quite frankly, I prob­a­bly missed some real­ly impor­tant things. But hey, this is my “It’s Monday” response to the ser­mon (even if it real­ly is Tuesday) so what is impor­tant is how I respond to what I took away from the ser­mon, even if it was only the ser­mon title, God Listens.

Ok, I took away a lot more than that, just being cranky I guess, but I want to focus on just one thing that Pastor Jeff point­ed out. I real­ly need to get a pic­ture of our plat­form… maybe I will take a pic­ture of it lat­er this week and insert it here… but any­way, we have a large ant hill on our plat­form with large ants crawl­ing up and down it. Even still, they are very hard to see unless you are near it. Pastor Jeff used that as an exam­ple of how a lot of peo­ple think God see us, an ant farm exper­i­ment. Throw the ants in and watch them do their thing, write down things on a clip board and think “yes, I should do it dif­fer­ent­ly next time.”

God is not a dis­tant, uncar­ing, non-involved God. He is deeply con­cerned for us, lives in us through His Spirit, lis­tens to us, and responds even when we are gum­bling and com­plain­ing against Him. God’s love for us is so great that despite our awful sin that should have Him dump the ant farm out and start over agin, He sent His Son to die for us that we might have eter­nal life. And that eter­nal life is guar­an­teed because God res­ur­rect­ed His Son after three days and Jesus now awaits that day in heav­en when He calls us all to be with Him for­ev­er. Talk about lis­ten­ing and respond­ing!

I have been some­what cranky and prob­a­bly a bit grumbly late­ly. I haven’t felt like doing much of any­thing and have neglect­ed God. It is time I lis­ten to God and hear what He would have for me. I know He will lis­ten to me but … Oh, I just remem­bered that Pastor Jeff preached in part regard­ing the Lord’s Prayer. A lot of what he said must have bur­rowed its way into my fog bound brain because I was almost going to type what he preached on with­out think­ing!

God is our Father. He should be respect­ed and is holy. We are privliged as His chil­dren to be able to ask Him to meet our needs, to for­give us for sin­ning against Him just as we have for­giv­en those who have hurt us. He does lis­ten to us but it is His king­dom and we need to give Him the hon­or and glo­ry due Him, ask­ing accord­ing to His will and acknowl­edg­ing that He will pro­vide accord­ing to His plan.

I am so thank­ful that even when I am grumbly and cranky, God loves me and will pro­vide for me despite my lack of trust, love and obe­di­ence to Him. God, help me lis­ten to you, to hear your voice, and obey your will that you may recieve the glo­ry and hon­or that is yours alone.

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