My phone rings today on the way home from church.  It was a relative with a simple message, “practice what you blog”.   

Ok, so the conversation wasn’t quite like that but that essentially was what I was hearing on the phone.

Three months ago as mentioned in my first blog The Death Crawl Post , I had a life changing experience when I finally forgave someone that I had been working on forgiving for a while.  Since that time, I have had the beautiful experience of hearing the voice of the Lord in my daily life throughout the day.  In fact, the moment I forgave, my spiritual ear literally opened and my life has never been the same.

I know that sounds elementary and you have probably known clearly when the Lord was speaking to you throughout your life.  For me, I was always unsure and because of that, I really didn’t know how and when the Lord was speaking to me.

Consequently, I turned a deaf ear to the voice of God many, many times.  

Sadly, I never really expected to hear HIs voice because I just thought that was for some people.  Boy was I wrong.  I will man up and just tell you, that was life for me. I have no shame in admitting I used to struggle hearing the voice of the Lord.  But now,  I hear His voice in many ways.  One would think that my favorite way would be when He speaks to my spirit through my own ear, but it’s not.

My favorite is when I hear His voice through other people.

WHY?  It’s direct!  For me personally, it’s like an arrow coming straight at me and it always hits its target. When His Voice  comes through other people, is is usually when you least expect it. Like as in when you  have just left church and thought God was done talking to you for a bit.

Side Note:  If you’re not currently hearing God speak to you, stop talking so much when you pray and give Him time to respond. It’s just like talking to a good friend.  If we talk the whole time, we will never hear what they say.   It’s the same with Jesus.  He’s polite, loving and caring and He’s not going to interrupt you.

Another tip, lose the God voice.    

What’s that you ask? You know the tone of voice we use when praying to impress God. You have one, you know you do. I have one and I’m trying to forget it.  God is not impressed with the tone of your voice even if you think it makes you sound more sincere, it really doesn’t.  It’s your heart that matters to God.     And when you listen, expect to hear something about how much He loves you, something encouraging and pertinent to what your talking to Him about.

 Another tip that helped me. If He says not to do something, don’t do it. The more you obey His voice, the more He will keep answering you back.  Also, be ready for Him to tell you things that might shock you.  Remember, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts as the Psalmist wrote.  But friend, He loves you and wants to talk to you all day long, if we will stop to listen.   He wants to tell you how special you are to Him and to help you along your journey in life until we see Him.

So,  back to the phone call from God today.

“Practice what you blog!”     Here I was 2 weeks ago telling the world about my  powerful journey of forgiveness, yet I’m telling a relative, (ok guys, it was my baby sister in Colorado that called me)  that I was done with a person. I was telling her that  I was giving this person 1 more chance to make something right then they were out of my life.  “

WOW! Seriously? ” was the message behind her words.

And then she beautifully brings up the story of  forgiving 70 x 7 as Jesus told Peter in that famous conversation.

[Mat 18:21-22 KJV]

21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. 

Somehow, I thought that since I had been forgiving this person for 7 years for the same thing over and over again and gave them 1 more chance,  God was good with that.   But that isn’t good enough in Jesus’ world.   Since when does He stop forgiving us for falling down over and over again.  And yes, I believe in setting boundaries but even if someone crosses my boundary, I still have to forgive and reestablish that boundary in a better way.

I hung up and texted her back. “I hate when you’re right”.  

She texted back “So does my husband”……

So, IF I’m not going to live what I’m blogging, then I want to stop blogging.   I don’t want to be like so many other mouth pieces that God  uses who forget their first sermon, first lesson or their  first blog.

 I’m not saying we have to be perfect.  .  But I want to be a doer and  NOT just a blogger.  So back to my knees on My Death Crawl.