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REJOICE!! I LOVE YOU
WAIT!
SEEK!
REJOICE!! I LOVE YOU
December 21, 2006
“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)
Mario Bergner has an interesting story about when he began to keep a “listening prayer journal.” Having heard how God used this spiritual discipline in the lives of some of his friends, he was eager to try it out. He began with a brief prayer: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Then he read a few verses of Scripture. After copying one of the verses into his journal, he meditated on the passage and sat quietly to listen for God’s voice. Soon afterwards, Mario thought he heard God say, “I love you, Mario,” so he wrote it into his journal. Sensing nothing more, he said, “Thanks, God, I love you too,” and went about his business.
The next day Mario went through the same routine of asking God to speak to him, reading and meditating on a few verses of Scripture (different verses from the previous day), and then sitting quietly to listen for God’s voice. God spoke the same words, so Mario wrote “I love you, Mario” in the entry for the second day of his prayer journal.
On the third day, Mario went through the same routine. Again he heard: “I love you, Mario.” This time he asked: “God, aren’t you going to say anything else to me?”
God’s reply to his question quite startled him. “Mario, why should I tell you anything else when you don’t believe what I’ve already told you?”
How many of us do not hear from God? We might have read the Bible cover-to-cover and studied it diligently. But even though we believe it is true, we never seem “to get much out of it.” We may have sincerely (and frequently!) prayed for God to guide us. But after repeated efforts, we still have no clue what we should do.
There are probably many reasons why we don’t hear God speak to us. (Deliberate disobedience comes to mind.) It could be, however, that our problem is like Mario’s—we just don’t believe the “I love you”s that God speaks to us. How can you tell? Try forming a picture of Zephaniah 3:17—God singing over his people. If you cannot imagine God taking delight in you, then you may have to confess like one man did to Jesus: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
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©2009 Meadowbrook Church