I pray.
I have a prayer list. I also pray and journal through my daily Bible reading, seeking to listen to what the Spirit is saying to me through the Word of God.
I lift up short prayers during the day as needs or thoughts come to me.
Which obviously means that I do listen. I listen for His guidance about who and what to lift up to Him. I listen for nudges to send someone a text of encouragement. I listen for His teaching and correction, because I desperately want to be growing in righteousness and purity.
But lately I’ve been convicted of something. I’ve realized that I don’t listen for His affirmation. For His words of love. For His expression of delight in His creation.
Don’t get me wrong, I hunger for it. I’d love to know deep down in the core of my soul that He loves me. Truly loves me. That I am beloved and treasured by Him. That I bring Him delight as His creation.
Yes, I know Scripture states this to be true and therefore I should simply believe it. But it’s a lot easier to focus on all of the ways I need to improve. I’m a perfectionist who deals with the glaring reality of my imperfections. So, it’s much easier to hear words of correction whispered to my heart. It’s harder to take that particular truth of Scripture — one I’m quick to assure anyone and everyone else of — and make it my own personal reality.
In order to know this truth deep down in my soul, I first have to listen for it. Listening for affirmation takes a whole lot more time and energy than listening for correction and teaching. For nudges of action. Listening for truth that will change the core of my being, that will adjust how I think about myself, takes effort. It goes against the words I’ve told myself all of my life (and even what others have said to and about me). That I am just one of the many, very ordinary, and no one worth attention. That I fail so easily. That it’s enough that God would let me have salvation at all.
And yes, it is enough. But the problem is that my lack of listening often leads me to perceive salvation as a distant mercy that I just happen to be caught up in rather than an act of personal, intimate love.
Typing it out makes me see how ridiculous it is, and I would always encourage anyone else to walk away from such thoughts! And yet, I still act like this is how God sees me.
It’s not that I see God Himself as distant, because I hear His voice regularly. But I convince myself that His love is distant because I don’t hear His words of love easily. I want Him to make me better. Purer. More righteous. Being obedient is more important than feeling loved, right? If I can be “more” then I will be able to believe that He really does love me and has all along. These are the wrong and unbiblical thoughts I have to confess all the time in order to grow in the intimate knowledge of His love.
Yes, I pray.
But at some point my prayers have to intersect with the truth of a God who loves. Personally. Intimately. Passionately. And my listening has to be slow, deliberate, and intentional enough to hear Him say those words to me. Imperfect me who feels so undelightful.
I need to hear His delight.
I’m a work in progress. But I’m growing. And the more I grow in the knowledge of His love, the more those other prayers I pray will be overwhelming filled with His love. That is where I’m meant to be.
Not Quite Ordinary 