Guest post submitted by Hippmama 
I love searching the internet. I love typing something in, being given about a bazillion things to choose from and learning about everything from headaches to flowers to how to make baby food and take better photos. I love the instant gratification, the immediate list I get of pages of information to soothe my continually searching brain. I love the plethora of words, opinions, advice, pictures, and blogs. I think the internet truly is the best thing since sliced bread.
I wish, now more than ever, that it worked for real life.
I wish I could just google my decisions....and enter in:
should I stay here or move to VA while my husband Trevor is away?
I could type:
should I pursue photography or only writing?Maybe search:
how can I be the parent God wants me to be?I wish it were that easy. So simple. Shake the black eight ball.
But, life is about living I guess. Mistakes, right choices....reworking things, going in new directions, talking with God.... I could make a very silly devotional here- about how God is our search engine- having given us his word as our direction, our map, using prayer as our catalyst... blah blah blah... and, it would be true. But it isn't reassuring.
We live in a google world. Enter in what you want, wait .03 seconds to get the answer, and yet.... God doesn't work that way.
We have to put in time. Talking, listening, reading, doing. Expecting answers, but often left waiting on them. Trying to avoid our own biases and opinions in order to hear what it is He'd have us do. And that is hard for me.
I have been molded by the instant world we live in. But I want to hear him. I don't want to miss what he'd ask of me because the answer isn't packaged in a 500 word article with bullet points and a pie chart. I want to be fluid and liquid- able to move with him, have Him work through me, being flexible to truly hear His voice and not just my ideas with some scripture wrapped around them in order to make them seem palatable. I want to do his will, to know it.
So, I guess, in the vein of the google metaphor.... I need to get back to a dial up life. Slower, drumming my fingers and daydreaming while I wait for the connection to come through...being still and calm while I listen for his voice. Realizing that the connection is still as strong, just not as fast as I'd like...and be thankful for that.
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Comments (36)
God gave you a brain so you could think for yourself. If he truly wanted people to ask him to make every decision, why didn't he make us with brains that can only perform one function: prayer? Who needs decision-making abilities? Who needs logic?
YES! Waiting on God can be frustrating, but it is always worthwhile. God may not give us the answer we are hoping for, but it is best. Conneting to God is one of our greatest priveledges.
I tend to agree. It would be nice if it was that easy...to just google the question and bam the answer appeared, lol. I personally think a lot of times God waits a little bit of time just to see if we are going to take matters into our own hands and do our own thing anyway regarding a decision or just simply to see IF we will act from our heart and do the right thing.
This reminds me of the death situation. I think if we all knew when and how we were going to die, we would all run around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to prepare, trying to detour it, anxiously waiting, not being able to enjoy the life we have in the here and now.
While it's not as simple as just googling it and getting the answer within milliseconds, there are two things I have found to be true about His answer, His response...It's ALWAYS answered and to His glory!
if God wanted life to be easy, He might have
I'm not sure that I would want God to be a 'seach' engine, since I have no idea what that is....but a seaRch engine God...that could be useful
search engines are efficient and nifty, but so less exciting and exuberant :)
simply awesome.
I be-'seach' ye to revise the title of this entry. ;)
Actually, the connection that man has with God might be analogized by a terabit per second connection speed - SUPER FAST. It is man who is slow to connect and receive what is coming over the line, and it is God who must exercise patience.
Similarly, the patience that a human being must exercise is not with God but with himself and others.
In fact when one truly approaches God the experience is one of being burned down. It's what the eye feels at trying to look at the sun. Compared to the sun, the eye is extremely weak.
So it is through living a spiritual life that the soul strengthens and refines its appetite for the infinite brightness of Light.
I like this post; it makes you value oiur free will even more.
Over and over I've been reading where people are wanting God to "prove" himself to them...they aren't realizing that he already has. I like this analogy, relating our expectations of God's response to that of google.
Well first off, god can't be like that because he'd know how to spell the word "search."
if it was only that easy...
@SerenaDante@xanga - ha! but, technically, that's gonna be xanga's fault, not the posters. They do the editing.
@JadedJanissary@xanga - Lol, for sure!
LOL! i didn't title the essay... revelife did..
and like all of us... missed a spelling mistake.
ah well.
love your responses!
Funny, I just made a post about the relationship between God and Google... here it is.
@Hippmama@xanga - we're super sorry about that Heather! We're glad to see people saw beyond the spelling error.
Thanks again for submitting the post!
Wow. I love your illustration! I remember that after my second overseas missions experience, I prayed and waited for 2.5 years before God brought me to another one, even though i was praying about it constantly. It was worth the wait.
more or less... wish God was more like a search engine so when I type in -my direction for what to do with life- it might be more of a clearer journey... for me at least I won't have to constantly go back and type it in again just to be sure...
everyone is different in their relation to God... there is no set way or mold we all are to follow... there is but one God and His direction... but He works with each individual individually... and thus we must in our own way respond... not in the cookie-cutter sense... but with honesty and with the way God wired us to follow Him... we are to respond accordingly to way God wired us up to respond and to follow Him in...
great post...
Thank you for such an encouraging post. I just cried to a friend tonight about this idea...of wanting to hear God so clearly and make the right decisions and know it's Him who is leading. Every time I feel this way I am always led to James 1 "count it all joy, my brethren, when you face trials of many kinds. For the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Steadfastness must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."
These times where we fight trying to figure God out are times where, even if it doesn't feel like it, we're growing closer to Him.
Hope He continues to speak to you, because you speak to us, too. :)
Well, if you DO move to VA, I live here and we can visit! I'm only an hour away from Quantico!
@LadyLibellule@xanga - I'm not asking this to be mean or offensive, but I am just curious: why do you comment on Christian blogs if you hate God so much? I saw you commenting on another blog somewhere else on Revelife, and you were hateful of God over there, too. Just wondering. Not trying to get you on the defensive.
@YackAttack@xanga - I don't "hate God". I hate having to watch people twist myths to suit their point of view and belittle others just so they can have a feeling of self-righteous superiority. And I hate that all of that is sanctioned by Xanga.
Does that clear some things up?
@LadyLibellule@xanga - Yes, it does clear some things up.
If Xanga were a city, and Christianity was a community within that city, and you were a resident on the other side of town, you'd clothe yourself in a self-appointed police uniform, drive across town, enter the Community of Christianity, and begin telling people that their homes aren't good enough to live in, that the construction isn't up to par, and then threaten them to stay away from your section of town.
Crystal clear.