Waking God

A show of hands, ladies and gentlemen. Have any of you been given the silent treatment and had absolutely no idea why?

On the flipside, have any of you have sworn you’re not going to demean yourself by explaining, for the thousandth time, that you need extra help with the kids before soccer practice, or that you feel ignored when your spouse doesn’t ask how your day went?

But sadly, love doesn’t give you the ability to read minds. And in the end, we learn the lesson again and again, we have to verbalize our feelings, our needs, our wants. Expecting your partner to anticipate your needs is guaranteed to end badly.

It’s the same with God, even though, oddly enough, He does have the ability to read minds. But He still desires us to explain ourselves to Him, doesn’t He? “I’m feeling scared of this.” “I’m really worried about that.” “God, I think I need x, y and z. Help me. Please.”

Jesus slept on that boat, as it was tossed and turned by the waves, until his disciples woke him. “Why were you sleeping?” they ask. Well, geniuses, he was sleeping because they hadn’t woken him up yet. They had wasted time cowering in fear, waiting for him to act. They gave him the silent treatment and they didn’t even know it.

God doesn’t desire us to verbalize our needs as a way of keeping us submissive. He’s not that petty. What He desires is the communication — that’s what really counts. That act of opening yourself up, of becoming vulnerable, of relying on Him, trusting Him. If it feels like God is asleep in your life, ask yourself this, have you tried waking Him up?

— Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS