attention

Parents often are forced to go to the next level when attempting to gain the attention of their children.  It happens in every home where the child gets so captivated in a movie or in a game that breaking away to listen to mom or dad becomes a challenge.  But when the child is unresponsive to the beckoning of the parent, the parent usually goes to the next level to get their attention.  The first level is normal volume conversations and if that doesn’t work, the parent goes to the next level by turning their voice volume up.  If the child is unresponsive to the change in volume, the next level could be a threat to remove from the child whatever it is that has captured their attention.  When the volume level and threat levels do not work, parents still have another level to resort to and that is to turn off or snatch away whatever their child is mesmerized by.  

We must know that in our walk with God, when we become unresponsive to His attempts to get our attention, He goes to the next level.  This spiritual progression is often regrettable in that it should not take that much for us to turn and heed the voice of the Lord, but sadly, too often it does.  In 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 we read,

“When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

God has used this coronavirus to get the attention of some of His children, but still there are many unresponsive inviting God to go to the next level.  One effective level God uses to get our attention is sickness and health issues, even death.  That doesn’t mean that every sickness and every death is a calling from God to get your attention, but it has proven to be effective.  Another effective level God uses is accidents that lay people on their backs, but again not every accident is God trying to get your attention.  God is not limited in the ways He works to get our attention.  Many times the plain preaching and proclaiming of His Word by men and women filled with the anointing of God gets the attention of those God is calling.  God got the attention of the Ninevites by the loud voice of a rebellious man who had been released from a whale.  

The point is, does God have your attention by what is taking place in the world today or does He need to go to the next level?  Joni Eareckson Tada once said, “God permits what He hates to accomplish things that He loves.” Perhaps God is gently using this short blog to say, “Hey, I’m talking to you, stop what you are doing and listen to me.”