There are many ways that God gets our attention, or at least tries to. He places rainbows in the sky, paints a beautiful sunset, surprises us with some personal delight and longs for us to recognize each as a gift from His hand. Those welcomed blessings can go unnoticed and unappreciated. When these attempts fail to regain our focus, God, on occasion, uses something more disastrous to wake us from distraction and draw our thoughts to Him.
We are probably all familiar with the famous C. S. Lewis quote from his book "The Problem Of Pain": "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
In a song that Christian singer Mandissa recorded, lyrics express: "Who knows how He'll get ahold of us, Get our attention to prove He is enough, He'll do and He'll use whatever He want to, To tell us 'I love you'." Yes, sometimes God's "I love you" is spoken loudest through grief and pain. There are graces that fall on us in tragedy and one of those treasures is experiencing God and knowing His tender, patient love for us.
We live in a fast-paced world with overscheduled agendas, hourly commitments, daily appointments and double-booked weekends. Pausing for meaningful time with the Lord can be pushed to a back burner when the demands before us have time constraints and others requiring us to be places and complete tasks within unrealistic deadlines. The constant chaos and chatter can need a major interruption to call us back into relationship with the Lord, and it is "by means of suffering He rescues" us, getting our "attention through adversity."
We would love for God to get our attention another way, but sadly we are often so caught up in all our doing we have neglected being, and an unexpected calamity slows us down and stops us up. I'm sure I am not the only one who has heard testimony after testimony of how the Lord used an accident, loss or diagnosis to draw a wayward heart to Him. I even guess that every Christ-follower reading this has their own example of how a hardship has revealed God's love and deepened their faith. How I would love to hear each story for the praise of His glory. Although these sudden challenges bring heartache, they also extend invitations to meet with God and experience His miraculous work in our lives.
When I say "miraculous work" I don't necessarily mean healing, although I fully am convinced that God does and can still heal. I personally believe that I have been the recipient of His divine touch on my life, but His supernatural intervention can also be evidenced through the manifestation of His power as He sustains and enables us to walk roads we had thought impossible to travel. As He provides the strength and courage to get up each day and face this new unwanted unknown, we lean heavily on Him and discover He is able, willing, strong, faithful and loving.
Christ is a Rescuer. Not only does He provide relief in the here and now, but by His life, death and resurrection He has given us an escape from an eternity of suffering, rescuing us from the consequences of our own sin. This rescue 9-1-1 is freely ours through acknowledging Christ as Saviour, admitting and confessing sin, repenting of all wrongdoing and following Jesus in obedience.
I don't know where you are in your relationship with the Lord or what it might take for God to get your attention. In the past He has used a donkey, burning bush, divided sea, earthquake, wrestling stranger and the list goes on and on. God is creative, but scripture is clear that suffering is one of His methods. If He employs a season of suffering on your life, don't question His love. He hasn't abandoned you. He is drawing you closer to Himself. We would never choose a painful road to seek Him, but He willingly chose to walk a painful road to save us.
Song quote: God Speaking; Songwriters: Ronnie C. Jr. Freeman; Capitol CMG Publishing; Universal Music Publishing Group
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