Friday, September 30, 2011

Obedience

I have written a number of posts here about taskings I have been given, and which I have followed through on. Usually, they require me to act like I am nuts (to those who don't believe in God or don't believe that God interacts with people today as God did in the past -- I don't believe that God has stopped talking to us but rather that we have stopped listening) or require me to do things that I find embarrassing, humiliating, and otherwise a tad troublesome. Of course, they are always the right thing to do, and they always focus on helping someone, righting a wrong, and the like. It is just that sometimes I wish God would choose someone else, partly because I am not obedient by nature and partly because, well, why would anyone want to go around making himself/herself sound like a modern-day Jeremiah (if only on a small scale)?

Interestingly, these taskings, to date, have always been things I am supposed to do. Until recently, that is. I have for a few weeks been trying to write a post for this blog about the Voice. Yes, of course, I have written many posts about the Voice. However, I have never sat down and described the Voice in detail the way St. Teresa did -- and maybe she described all that is needed to be described, but I really thought I had something to add to that description. However, each time I wrote a very nice (my opinion) post on the topic, I would hear God telling me: "Don't post it." I have tried 4-5 times, each time with the same message: dont, which is not a word I typically get, except in the case of not leaving my job for a better one. I don't know why I am not supposed to post it. After all, God let St. Teresa of Avila (big disappointment this week -- was in Madrid, Toledo, Alcala but could not get to Avila) write about the Voice in very specific ways. (Of course, there was St. John of the Cross hanging around, telling her not to pay much attention to her locutions, whose advice she did not heed in this case.)

It is all very confusing to me, yet very clear. I will not post or share my description because I am not supposed to. Perhaps because it will do some harm. Perhaps because I don't understand it as well as I think I do. (That happens a lot in life with a lot of things.) All I know is that when God says do something, I do try to do it (perhaps with less posh than someone else would do it, but it gets done). Now God is saying not to do it -- so I will not do it.

5 comments:

  1. hello
    those no don't-s listened too are often the stuff maturity is made of

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  2. Listen to that still small voice, sis


    Warm Aloha from Waikiki;

    Comfort Spiral



    (*)>
    / )
    /"



    > < } } ( ° >

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  3. Thanks, Donetta and Cloudia. You are right, of course. But sometimes the temptation is great not to listen! ;)

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  4. Elizabeth,
    This has happened to me also, albeit in a different form that I call divine impressions. These words are as clear as a voice, I hear them in my head but not out loud (if that makes sense). I have been held back from posting certain things but I'm not quite sure why. It occurred to me that it might have to do with something as simple as obedience and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps some of the things may be harmful spiritually to others though I'm not certain why this might be. What is funny is that if I try to post something that the Lord doesn't want me to post my mind goes completely blank. It happens often enough that I joke that "the Lord is dumbing me down". It also makes me realize that everything is grace and I don't run properly without it :)

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  5. Yes, your "divine impressions" make sense to me, and they fit, in my interpretation, the description that St. Teresa gives of locutions. I think mine are probably the same; I just hear them as external. The brain is funny that way; after all, it is not the stimulus that matters in the long run but the interpretation of the stimulus. Anyway, I think God is pretty good at getting us not to do what we would like to do that we should not do -- as long as we listen and obey.

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