A NUDGE OR A FLICK?

            When I’ve discussed listening to God, I talk about what I like to call the “Holy Flick”. What’s that you ask? I don’t know if you ever experienced someone flicking you on the forehead—maybe to get your attention or maybe to inquire what you might have been thinking? Not something we really appreciate, is it?

            So what is a Holy Flick? That’s what I picture when there are the times when I chose not to listen to God, or to even push back against God. I pictured his listening to all my arguments and then giving me a flick on the forehead to say “are you listening?”

            In reading one of the daily devotions in “A Generous Life-28 Days of Devotion”, I read something that struck me. I was written by Sanford D. Coon. The title of that day’s devotion is “The Divine Nudge”. The devotion said “it dawned on him that he was focused on himself, not on God or the provisions that God persistently makes for him. That’s how God expresses his love for me, he realized.” The devotion went on to quote fourteenth-century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart: “And suddenly you know: it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”

            As we are about half-way through our summer, and, hopefully, are thinking and planning for the fall’s stewardship campaigns in our churches, how is God nudging us toward something new? How can we focus on God and not on ourselves.

            I encourage you to consider these questions and find a way to ask your folks these questions as well? What is God calling us to? Are we ignoring the nudge and the flick?

 

Feel free to contact me at sranousacctg@twcny.rr.com or susanranous@unyumc.org