There is a restaurant in Atlanta called The Varsity. Since opening in 1928, it has grown and claims to be the world’s largest drive-in restaurant. When you walk in the first time, don’t expect the usual, polite server asking you for your order. Instead, you will be greeted with a curt, almost rude, “What’ll ya have?” Rather than being offensive, this is just part of the atmosphere of the place, and one of the reasons people become repeat customers.
There is another part of our lives to which we come seeking service. It isn’t a place where there is a counter or a drive-through lane. There isn’t a person wearing a brand-name uniform, with a trained smile and a memorized sales pitch. Rather, this is our best, most loyal friend, our God in whom we trust our lives. We come to Him often or rarely, seeking some favor or help, hoping that He will answer our prayers in the manner we think is best for us. Whether we receive the answer we want or the favor we seek is up to Him. It is a matter of our faith in God that we believe “Father Knows Best” and He always has our best interests for us, even those we don’t agree with. Can you imagine God responding to our prayers with The Varsity’s, “What’ll ya have?”, as if He was in a hurry and didn’t have an eternity of time to listen to our needs?
While God listens to us with an infinite amount of patience, and it probably takes that for some of us, it isn’t always the case when He is the one asking. While we expect Him to be there for us and listen to us, we don’t always do that for Him. How often does your attitude cause you to respond to His requests with, “Whadda ya want?” We don’t have the same courtesy towards God that we would give to a total stranger. Perhaps God has been nudging you down different paths as He prepares you for a specific task He wants you to do. As you move from one path to another, it would be easy to get frustrated and stop doing what He wants you to do at that moment or time in your life. He knows where He wants you to go and what He wants you to do. The hardest thing for us as believers is to really believe God knows what He is doing, and He doesn’t need our “fine tuning” to move us along. Sometimes, God doesn’t show us the big picture, but just what we need to see for the near term. This is, for us as humans, arguably the hardest part, to have the faith to believe that God knows what He is doing and has a plan. All we have to do is follow that plan in faith, or, some would say, blindly.
It is easy to ignore God when He tries to guide us or nudge us so we will accomplish a task in His great scheme. It is easy to ignore Him once or twice or even more than that. God, however, will keep trying to get our attention and to get us to do what He wants us to do. So, the next time He taps you on the shoulder or whispers in your ear, say, “Whadda You Want, Lord? How can I help you today to accomplish your plan for tomorrow and all of eternity?”
Our lack of courtesy towards God comes from a familiarity, don't you think? We're often less kind to those we know than we are towards strangers. Put that together with a lack of reverence and awe in our society, and God ends up getting treated more like a drinking buddy than the Creator of the Universe
ReplyDeleteI don't see it so much as a lack of courtesy. Rather it is more the reaction of a resistant child who finally gets the message that what God wants is something we need to listen to. As you can see In my introduction at the beginning of this blog, I resisted what God wanted me to do for well over a year until I figured out that his patience was limitless. At that point, I finally said, "Okay, fine, I'll do what you want." Regardless of the number of decades behind us, we are still children and like all children we don't always do what we are told the first time...or even the tenth! The important thing is that we bend to his will.
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