Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God's Voice Above All Others (26 page)

It’s okay to feel that way. It’s permissible, even noble, to strain to believe what God has said when you’re standing in the gap, wondering what in the world He’s doing and when He will come through for you.

But it’s no reason for you to fall away.

Surely the gap is no wider for you than it was for John.

As it turns out, from a human standpoint there is to be no happy ending in John’s story. The gap is never reconciled, at least not in this life and not in the way I would have expected.

After hearing about John’s bout with discouragement, wouldn’t you expect Jesus to take action—break Cousin John out of prison? If Andy Dufresne can do it …

Instead, Scripture records that Herod “had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.”
⁴

Could this even remotely resemble the ending John expected? When Jesus stepped onto the scene, and John urged his followers to follow Jesus the Christ instead, did he know that his gesture of worship and selflessness would be remunerated with a criminal’s execution?

When he declared in John 3:30, “He [Jesus] must become greater; I must become less,” could he possibly have imagined that becoming less would mean going
this
low and losing his very
life
? No, Jesus didn’t kill John, but He allowed
him to be killed. Either way, John’s dead. It is highly unlikely that John foresaw any of these events playing out the way they did.

Even so, he didn’t let what he expected keep him from what Jesus wanted him to experience. He stayed faithful in life and even unto death. And as a result, he accomplished the purpose of God in a way no one else ever would. Just as John had the privilege of preparing the way for Jesus in life, so he would prepare the way for Jesus in death.

It wouldn’t be long before Jesus, suffering a death much more savage and humiliating than John experienced, would give John this affirmation: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Not through a messenger, but face to face.

Not in this life, but in the life that will never end.

Not in the way John would have expected, but in a way that would exceed anything John could have ever asked or imagined.

If God always met our expectations, He’d never be able to exceed them. Sometimes God takes us to another level by building higher. Sometimes He does it by digging deeper. But at all times He is working for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Holly’s mom, Deborah, shared with me several years ago an experience she had with Joy, her youngest daughter. Joy is a beautiful young lady who was born with special needs.

In my opinion, parenting presents the highest degree of relational difficulty. But being the parent of a child with special needs must complicate the decision-making process of parenting exponentially.
How do I care for this child, considering—but not overcompensating for—her needs? How do I give her freedom but also protection? How do I normalize her life, knowing that life for her will never be normal?

Holly’s parents continue to deal with these questions daily, even now that Joy is thirty years old.

But there have been certain transitional points in the journey of raising Joy where the discouragement has been deafening for Deborah. One of those points
came when Joy was about to turn fifteen. Parents of other fifteen-year-olds were preparing their daughters for their driving tests, teaching them to parallel park. And the discouragement started detonating in Deborah’s heart:
Your daughter will probably never drive a vehicle
. And she wouldn’t.

Other girls were starting to go out on dates. Deborah was trying to determine how best to explain to Joy why she might not be asked out on dates while showing her that she was valuable and beautiful.

Deborah had pushed through the chatter concerning various stages of Joy’s development. But with each growth spurt and developmental delay came more discouragement.

One day when the confusion seemed unbearable, Deborah came across an essay titled “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley. It didn’t solve all the tensions of disappointment for Deborah. And it won’t for you. But it’s a brilliant lens to look through for any disappointment you’re facing.

Kingsley writes,

Don’t let what you expected keep you from what God wants you to experience. God has plans for you that you know nothing about right now. That means He may take you down paths that seem to lead to nowhere.

Believing God means assuming that He is always working, even when our faith and prayers and love don’t seem to be working at all. Realizing this opens our hearts to accept what God has allowed in each season of our lives without being overtaken by discouragement. The more we can rest in this confidence, the wider our spiritual eyes will open to the blessings the Father has already given us.

And this kind of gratitude—the kind that does not shrink back but fights back in the face of discouragement—is kryptonite to the chatterbox.

Maybe it’s because I’m from the South, or maybe it’s because I’m unusually uptight, but I’m a stickler for manners. I freely confess that when I hear someone under the age of eighteen respond to an adult without the courtesy of a
ma’am
or a
sir
, my face tenses, my teeth grind, and I almost reflexively reach to turn them over my knee.

I make no claim that my kids are poster children for good manners, but Holly and I do enforce certain protocols. Perhaps this obsession subconsciously started when my grandmother shoved an entire bar of soap in my mouth after hearing me speak dishonorably toward my mom one day at lunch. I presume Alzheimer’s erased this incident from her memory, but I’ll remember it until the day I die.

Whatever the reason, I have a strong conviction in parenting to teach my kids that mistakes are inevitable but disrespect is inexcusable. And ingratitude is more than a misdemeanor.

The words
sir
and
ma’am
are not optional around the Furtick house, and neither are
please
and
thank you
. If you want to eat, or breathe, and avoid a generally unpleasant life, you will learn to use those words fluently. You must speak the language of respect and appreciation in our home, or it will not go well with you in your days on the earth. It may sound old school, but I feel these values are more important than ever, considering that a culture of dishonor and ingratitude seems to be on the rise.

Just as many children never receive or embrace basic principles about honor
and thankfulness, many of God’s children never understand that approaching God involves a certain protocol as well. It is a protocol that is countercultural and kind of counterintuitive. It is a language and posture that is grounded in respect and appreciation. It contradicts the constant chatter of discouragement, and it attunes our hearts to God’s voice in every circumstance.

I’m not suggesting God wants us to fuss endlessly over the exact wording of our prayers in order to satisfy a must-be-this-tall-to-ride requirement before we pray. Jesus condemned the sort of rigid formality that was in vogue in His day, instructing His disciples to instead address God as Father. Through Christ, we can come to God the Father as we are, knowing He will receive us as His children.

But the same God we know as Father and Friend is also the King of the universe. And this King has given us specific instructions for how to come into His presence—not because His ego needs to be appeased, but because our perspective needs to be corrected. The psalmist instructs us to

Often these verses are applied to the contexts of corporate worship gatherings or personal prayer techniques. This book is not primarily focused on either of those subjects, obviously. But still, the psalmist presents an important truth for us. When we enter the gates of God’s presence with thanksgiving, we survey the wonderful things He’s already done. This sense of gratitude combats our discouragement by reestablishing our confidence:

If God did it before, He’ll do it again
.

If God says I can, I can
.

Nothing will bring us into a consciousness of God’s presence more quickly and deeply than praising Him and giving thanks to Him. And nothing will disrupt our awareness of His presence like focusing on our own discontent.