call me | Kristi's Morning Devotional

November 23, 2019November 23, 2019

Who Would You Talk To

For some reason this morning I began to think about people I would like to sit down and talk with one-on-one. These are people who I feel have great knowledge, insight and understanding. I would like to learn from them, listen to their advice and counsel.

My lists consists of people like Robert Morris, Max Lucado, Rea Drummond, Beth Moore, the Apostle Paul, Peter Maneas, Kevin Harvick and Darrel Waltrip.

Quite a list right? So who’s on your list? Think about it for a moment…if you could have a special meeting for two hours, uninterrupted, who would you like to talk with? Great presidents, leaders of industry, influential men and women of medicine, sports stars – who would it be and what would you ask?

As I sat here thinking of the questions I would pose to each of these people I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of my heavenly Father. He is so much greater than anyone who has ever lived on earth and I have unrestricted access to His throne room.

“Lord All-Powerful, you are greater than all others. No one is like you, and you alone are God. Everything we have heard about you is true.” II Samuel 7:22 CEV

There is no one like our God – He is gracious, loving, kind and good. He knows all things and He created all things. His desire is for our good and well being; He will never abandon us or leave us helpless.

“No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” I Samuel 2:2 NLT

“I will call to You in the day of my trouble. For You will answer me. ⁸There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord. And there are no works like Yours.” Psalm 86:7-8 NLV

“There is no one like You, O Lord. You are great, and Your name is great in power. ⁷Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? For You should be honored with fear. Among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their lands, there is no one like You.” Jeremiah 10:6-7 NLV

It truly is amazing to know that someone this great and powerful is not only willing, but desirous, to give us His undivided attention. He asks us to come and spend time with Him. He tells us to call and He will answer. He tells us not to fear, He will never leave us; we will not be abandoned.

“Call to Me, and I will answer you. And I will show you great and wonderful things which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3 NLV

I would still like to talk with the people whose names I listed above but there is no one, absolutely no one, I would rather talk to than my Father.

Unlimited access! Unconditioned love! Unsearachable knowledge! Unlimited Grace!

August 2, 2018

Don’t Forget to Call

With our most recent road trip only days behind me I stopped to consider this morning what really made it special and different from past trips.

It was the conversation.

Dave and I have traveled probably traveled hundreds of thousands of miles on the highways of the western United States in the past 25 years and this is the first one that was really filled with conversation.

Now don’t get me wrong, we spent other trips talking but it was generally about the work we had ahead of us. Making final mental notes of the preparations that needed to be completed, tweeking the last minute details of a trade show or streamlining the daily operations of our jobs was the general topic.

Take those moments and interject computer work, goggle searches for extra information, talk radio or the latest country hits and our time was gobbled up minute by minute without really listening to each other’s hearts.

This trip was 25 hours of enjoying each other’s company!

Have you noticed how text messages and twitter have reduced our conversations to brief snippets and how our cell phone conversations are disjointed and distracted? Does it bother you that we don’t just sit and talk?

So often phone conversations are one sided; I have to hurry and tell you all about me and when you start to talk about you, I get busy on my end doing dishes or folding laundry and I barely listen.

Important stuff like news stories have been reduced to snippets because the viewing public have shortened their attention spans and if you don’t catch my interest immediately I’m off to another channel. So everything appears to be a crisis or a breaking story.

Very few take time to show sincere interest.

The sad thing is I find that happens more often than I like to admit in my relationship with the Lord. The saying “quality not quantity” leaves us making excuses for our actions. But what’s wrong with quality and quantity. Spending time, our only unrenewable resource with those we love especially, our Heavenly Father, should be first and foremost in our actions.

“You can be sure that anyone who serves the Lord faithfully is special to him.
The Lord listens when I pray to him.” Psalm 4:3 ERV

“The Father gives me my people. Every one of them will come to me. I will always accept them. ” John 6:37 ERV

Our heavenly Father has set an open-door, open-heart acceptance policy for us to follow. He listens when we talk with Him and He accepts us into His presence.

Should we do any less with those that we love?

Write a letter, leave a card, put a note in a lunch bag, sit down and focus when carrying on a phone conversation, turn the TV and other electronic devices off during meals and just visit. There’s a true expression of love in being listened too. There is a difference, a big difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is the comprehension of sound but listening is understanding the heart.

The Father always listens – He waits for each word and His desire is that we take time to listen to Him as well. Jesus related this instruction to John in Revelation about Christians and lukewarm relationship.

“Listen! I am standing and knocking at your door. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will eat together.” Revelation 3:20 CEV

Jesus is waiting to sit down and visit with you today. Do you have the time?

March 26, 2018

Answering the Call

How many of you can remember the old rotary dial phones? I do. They were a part of my childhood. I really think the first phone I saw was on my grandmother’s desk.

It was very similar to the one pictured here. And there was this cute little pencil with a round ball on top that you could use to help dial the phone. You see we didn’t have a phone in our home until I was in 3rd grade.

Dave remembers having a crank phone with a party line when he was a kid. If you wanted to make a call you had to listen first to make sure no one else was using it.

Things have certainly progressed!

Now, nearly everyone walks around with a phone in their pocket or purse. Voice mail and text messages have given way to personal calls. Phones are more for searching the web, checking accounts, keeping a calendar and GPS navigation than for talking.

Oh the good old days. Hearing someone’s voice and being excited to let all the distractions go and just visit. We couldn’t walk around and do dishes, clean, water the plants, use the computer while we were on the phone. No, we were tethered by a cord and so we generally just sat and visited. We learned about each other – talking and listening.

This morning as I was having my Bible reading I came across a verse in Jeremiah. He was one of the Old Testament prophets that God spoke His message through – God reaching out to the people of Israel giving them guidance and instruction.

“While Jeremiah was still shut up in the open space of the prison, the Word of the Lord came to him a second time, saying, ²“This is what the Lord says Who made the earth. The Lord made it to last. The Lord is His name. ³‘Call to Me, and I will answer you. And I will show you great and wonderful things which you do not know.’ ” Jeremiah 33:1-3 NLV

Call me and I will answer! How marvelous, we have God’s direct line! No going through phone trees, leaving voicemail or even sending a text. Call me and I will answer!

For the next several days, not sure how long, I am going to be on a private call with my Father. I need to have some time to spend with Him, sitting and hearing His voice. Learning what He desires for me to do and a lot of just catching up.

I want to learn those great and wonderful things that He is desiring to show me. Can you imagine the maker of the universe has asked us to spend time with Him?

I’m taking Him up on the offer. I hope you will too!