Confession

Sounds intriguing doesn’t it?  Well, perhaps not…

Over the past several months I have been making an increased effort to spend more time with God.  Praying, reading my Bible and just sitting quietly and listening.  Then about a week ago, I heard a message at a church meeting.  We had visiting missionaries and one of the ladies who spoke talked of Deborah in the book of Judges.  Deborah was married to the king and she was a prophetess.  She received a word from the Lord and said to her husband the king “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you…”  I don’t need to go further because the point she made was, why was Deborah so confident of the words she spoke?  She knew she had a word from God…why? Because she was a woman of prayer.  She KNEW the sound of Gods voice. 

I have to say with some confidence that if God gave me a word as big as the one he gave to Deborah, I would not feel so confident.  And so, with that, I knew that I needed to step up my time with God even more…no time for slacking off.

Then, over the past couple of days I’ve not been spending so much time with God, - so this morning I knew I needed to, but I found that as I sang a worship song in my head, and as I prayed a few little prayers as I went about getting the kids fed and dressed this morning, there was a little bit of resistance.  I didn’t really feel like it.  I wasn’t enjoying it.  In fact, I would have been a whole lot more comfortable leaving it alone and just getting busy in the day as I had been the last few days.  I’ve felt this way before in the past and never really thought much about it…usually I’d just leave it for a while.  But this time I became curious as to what that feeling was all about.  Then I realized, it was my conscience.  I was feeling convicted, because the truth is, the reason I haven’t been spending much time with God is because I’ve been a bit lazy and selfish with my time.  This may seem like a small thing and no reason to get so bothered…but I don’t think it’s a small thing to God. In fact, as soon as I realized where the feelings came from and made a mental effort to change things (also known as repenting) I felt so much better and just about fell into my time with God this morning.

So why the confession?  Well, partly because I felt so different after I realized what was going on I felt like sharing, and partly because I thought it might breathe some insight into someone else’s life.

Judges 4:23 – On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Isrealites. 

If you can hear the voice of God, you can be a part of changing the world.