This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the message about God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the message of God, which also works effectively in you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:13 HCSB) I know this sounds ridiculous, but maybe it’s not as ridiculous as I think it is: don’t we sometimes feel like people, when they speak over us in love, perceive it to be uneducated and unintelligible? For example: when your mom, in her love, advises you about the housing market, knowing full well that you’re a real estate broker, would be received by you as uneducated and unintelligible. Likewise, when somebody gives you advice in a subject or an area of your life where you know you’re the “expert”, all of that is just annoying noise in your ears (this is how you feel about most religious professionals, it’s why you hate going to church). It’s as ridiculous as a bandit instructing a cop how to chase him down in a foot race. On the other hand, there are situations, where you just get schooled by the brilliance of a child, aren’t there? Like when a child comes to you and speaks to you in a way that just humbles you. The child speaks to you without knowing the ramifications of his or her speech, nor do they understand the gravity or circumstances in which you find yourself embroiled. Yet, they speak with the authority of God into your life. You welcome that and you embrace it. You wish all moments of clarity come to you this way. Now here’s the problem. Some of us, for some reason, want to take the words and message of people who speak into our lives without any love as prophecy from God. You see, it’s one thing to brush people off who love you wholeheartedly as misaligned; but it’s totally another when we allow people who do not love us to have that much power over us. Case in point, just look at all the bad decisions you made in the past and you will find people who don’t really love you, as the culprits who convinced your silly past self into making those ridiculous decisions that you always regret. Now, what if we were to receive from people who love us like a “nursing mother taking care of her own children” advice, no matter how ridiculous as something to be considered as if from God, what would happen then? I’m not talking about heeding stock advice from a seamstress. Nor am I saying that you should take medical diagnoses about potential cancer cures from hiker. I am talking about allowing people, who love you to sew their life experience and wisdom into your own because the power of God will undoubtedly work through that in your life. The question then becomes: who have you been blowing off because you thought it impossible that God work through them? And vice versa, who have you been listening to despite lacking love in your life?
