Hearing the Call

“Happy is the man whom the Muses love: sweet speech flows from his mouth.”~~Hesiod
(BrainyQuote)

Today’s word of the day, from Dictionary.com, is lacustrine, “of or relating to a lake.”

Today is Nothing Day. Seriously. I’m not making that up. Just a day to do nothing.

And that’s probably exactly what will happen around here, today, at least for me. I had a pretty rough night, last night. I’ll admit that I did stay up past 1:00 playing Fallout 4. But at some point during that time, my stomach started giving me fits. I went to bed, and tried to go to sleep, but kept feeling quite nauseated. Finally, around 2:45 or so, I got up and made a cup of peppermint tea to try to settle my stomach. I fought the nausea until after 4:00, at which point I went back to bed, and was finally able to fall asleep. I woke up at around 9:30. I know, right?? But, try as I might, I could not fall back asleep. I was actually feeling some hunger, so I think I’m going to live. I’ve had a couple cups of coffee, and things are feeling okay in there.

We do have our grocery shopping to do, today, but, other than that, that’s about it. Obviously, I’m a bit late getting started on this. But Christi and I were going over financial stuff, revisiting the budget.

It was on this date in 1970 that Curt Flood filed the lawsuit against Major League Baseball that would ultimately result in what we know, today, as free agency. Read the story at History.com.

Today’s birthdays include:

1821–John C. Breckinridge, 14th Vice President of the U.S.
1901–Frank Zamboni, American inventor
1902–Eric Liddell, Scottish runner, inspiration for Chariots of Fire
1908–Ethel Merman, American actress/singer
1910–Dizzy Dean, American baseball player, slud into third
1917–Carl Karcher, founder of Carl’s Jr. hamburger chain
1920–Elliott Reid, American actor
1932–Dian Fossey, American zoologist
1933–Susan Sontag, American writer
1935–A.J. Foyt, American race car driver
1944–Jim Stafford, American singer/songwriter, doesn’t like spiders and snakes
1946–Ronnie Milsap, American singer/songwriter, has daydreams about night things in the middle of the afternoon
1948–John Carpenter, American film director, escaped from New York
1950–Debbie Allen, American dancer/choreographer, sometime judge on So You Think You Can Dance
1959–Sade, Nigerian-born singer, she’s a smooth operator
1970–Garth Ennis, Irish comic book author, Preacher
1974–Kate Moss, English model
1980–Albert Pujols, Dominican baseball player
1985–Joe Flacco, American football player

Dizzy Dean was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in the thirties. He and his brother “Daffy,” combined for a total of 49 wins in 1934, a year in which the Cardinals won the World Series. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.

Can you tell I miss baseball?

Marshall Field, Carole Lombard, Arturo Toscanini, Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville), Ted Cassidy (Lurch), Herbert W. Armstrong, Glenn Corbett, Ennis Cosby, and Andrew Wyeth are among notable deaths on this date.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL

(From Praying With the Psalms)

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Psalm 13

If we can trust what we read in the Psalms, we find that it is okay to question God. But we also find that we might not always expect an answer. David doesn’t get an answer to “how long.” But he still arrives at the place of trust in the steadfast love and salvation of God. “God doesn’t open his plan book to the curious eyes of impatient sinners.” What we do get, however, is our God, “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1)

“O God, what good would it do me if I did know the answers to the querulous questions with which I badger you? You know what I really need–not more information, but more love; not your timetable, but your presence. Thank you for giving me yourself in Jesus Christ. Amen.”

(From My Utmost For His Highest)

Today’s reading is “The Voice of the Nature of God.”

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Isaiah 6:8

We tend to speak quite a bit about the “call of God.” But what we tend to forget is that which is most important, “the nature of the One Who calls.” We always hear of those select individuals who hear “the call of the sea, the call of the mountains, the call of the great ice barriers.” We must consider that the call expresses the nature of the one calling, “and we can only record the call if the same nature is in us.” it might be good to let that sink in for a minute.

“The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not of our nature.” Each of us has parts of God’s call that works within us, parts that we and no one else can recognize. “It is the threading of God’s voice to us in some particular matter, and it is no use consulting anyone else about it.” This is something profound between the individual and God, alone.

But when God calls me, it is not the “echo of my nature; my affinities and personal temperament are not considered.” If I am considering these things, primarily, and thinking only about what I think I’m best fitted for, I will not hear God’s call. However, if I enter into an intimate relationship with God, such as Isaiah had, then I will hear. “The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says.” All you have to do is listen to conversations at church to grasp this truth. Even in our most attuned state, we still tend to think more about ourselves than what God truly wants for us. “To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered.”

Father, open my eyes, my ears, and my heart to your call. While it’s true that I can say that I’ve heard your call throughout my life, there has always been a tendency to step back into what I think is best, what I think I can do. Stretch me, Father, to do your will. Bring me into that zone of your call, with all my senses awake to you. Teach me to set myself aside so that I may consider you and your purpose for me.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Grace and peace, friends.