Overcoming the multi-tasking machine

In my last post "Trying to keep it between the ditches" I talked about the craziness of this time of year and how if we are not careful life will run like a freight train and we will miss it. The day after that post I was looking for a new book to read during my devotion time I came across a old Max Lucado book called "God Came Near". My version was published in 1987 but was republished in 2004.  I love to read Max Lucado books but when I chose this one I was not ready for the journey the Lord was about to take me on.

As I read a phrase jumped out at me. "God goes to those who have time to hear him..."  I read that phrase and my mind went straight back to my post about trying to keep it between the ditches.  I have let the craziness and busyness of the last few weeks distract me.  No wonder I feel like this...

"My personal list has gotten so big that I have stopped looking at it and just keep hoping the little helper fairies will come and complete some of the items for me.  They haven't.  So I just hit a stopping point wishing for change and forward momentum but continued to remain stagnant.  Then I began to realize that this stagnant behavior was bleeding over into my quiet time.  I have realized that in my personal walk I have reached a desert.  A place where I desperately want to be fed and nourished but feel completely empty." - A segment from my post Changes on the horizon

As I read Max began to describe the stable where the baby Jesus was born.  What it was like in that room at that moment.

"The stable stinks like all stables do. The stench of urine, dung, and sheep reeks pungently in the air. The ground is hard, the say scarce. Cobwebs cling to the ceiling and a mouse scurries across the dirt floor.  A more lowly place a birth could not exist.

Off to the side sit a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him - on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds."

You see  in some point to me I think Joseph and Mary were just trying to keep it between the ditches.  They were expecting a new baby that they were told was the son of God, they were fleeing doing this census because they had no choice and what horrible timing...or was it?  That little village was busting with people but the ones who were ready to hear God were a small group of shepherds.

Max closed with this... "Those who missed His Majesty's arrival that night missed it not because of evil acts or malice; no, they missed it because they simply were not looking.  Little has changed in two thousand years, has it"

As we approach Thanksgiving next week and Christmas after that I realized that I don't want to be so busy, crazy and caught up in the freeway of life that I am not listening.  I want to always make time in my life to hear the Lord.  I am desperate for Him, I can't survive this life without Him.  However, this world does a really good job at fooling us into thinking that we have it all under control.  Between our computers, money, smartphones, tablets we are a multi-tasking machine, yet, it is this multi-tasking machine that can keep our focus so steady that even if God was speaking right to us...would we hear Him?  Would we see the person He placed in our path?  Next week as we sit down to spend time with family and appreciate the blessings we have, remember those blessings come from the Lord.  He wants to talk to you...are you listening?