The application part might just come sooner than expected!

In life we might find ourselves asking God for______.

You fill in the blank; faith, money, patience or wisdom, you name it.

Then what happens? Does God wave His “miracle wand” and bippity-boppity-boo, it appears? Not always.

   Yesterday night we had our church services, like normal. But before we could even get started with the Bible study, we faced several distractions of various kinds. We finally managed to set them aside and begin. We worshipped God through song and had a time of prayer and asked God to open our hearts to learn His Word. We just started getting into the Word when several more distractions arose, in spite of the distractions we did eventually manage to press on and came to the end of the study.

What was this study about, you might ask?


   We have been studying about the life of Elijah and how the Lord  was guiding him as he would wait to hear His voice before responding to whatever challenges he was facing.  This particular night we focused on  how important learning this lesson truly is. Elijah should have already known this lesson well from all that God had already brought him through but this time was different. The distance between expectation and disappointment is reality and this time Elijah was learning more about the "reality" part. After God had displayed His power in such an amazing way, Elijah expected that all of Israel would repent and turn to God. Instead he was told that the Queen had planned on murdering him the next day. When his expectation for what would happen did not occur,  we see for the first time Elijah acting without waiting to hear a word from the Lord. When Elijah acted without waiting for the voice of the Lord he stumbled, so much so, that he asked that the Lord would just let him die. Even as Elijah stumbled the Lord was with him and sustained him. God  used the difficult situation and  the distractions to serve a purpose; He taught Elijah how to effectively listen to His voice and follow His guidance regardless of whatever storms may rage around him. 

Distractions are always happening, sometimes distractions are fun, and sometimes they can be very inconvenient. When we encounter a distraction, 1 of 2 things can happen: we can allow the distraction to consume our focus and forget about what the Lord has for us to do or we can consider this distraction  an opportunity to learn whatever lesson it has to teach us and to move on to what God has next for us. Distractions, in and of themselves, aren’t the problem, it’s how we respond and handle them that determines the impact we allow them to have.

Like our ministry verse says, “Forget the past, see God is doing a new thing, do you not see it?” 

This very lesson was reinforced again for us today. We had many expectations for the day that definitely did not happen.Perhaps you have had these types of days too. Regardless of the day we are having it is important for us to consider what distractions we are experiencing and looking for what God is trying to show us through them.

Whatever we face, whether good or bad, this verse rings true,

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the LORD in everything you do, and he will show you the right way." (Pro 3:5-6)