Joel 2:1 – “Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near.”
As I previously mentioned, I’ve lived close to a fire station for decades, so I am very accustomed to sirens. Most of the time, I barely notice them anymore. But when the fire alarm in my own building sounds, that is different. It wakes me up.
The alarm can wake me, but it cannot make my decision for me.
I still have to respond.
Because of my disability, getting out of my building isn’t as simple as running down several flights of stairs. I need to assess what is happening and decide what I need to do. The alarm has done its job. It has alerted me. What happens next involves my response.
I’ve been thinking about how easily I can do something similar with God.
There are times when He convicts me, redirects me, or puts His finger on something I’ve been avoiding. Sometimes He speaks gently. Sometimes that conviction feels more like an alarm going off in my spirit.
Either way, once I recognise what He is saying, I have a choice.
Years ago, on the morning I originally wrote about this, my alarm clock briefly woke me up. I sleepily reached over and turned it off. Instead of getting out of bed, I closed my eyes for just a minute.
Or so I thought.
The next time I looked at the clock, more than two hours had passed. Fortunately, the only commitment I had that day was writing the article! I spent the rest of the day feeling as if I were chasing myself, trying to catch up.
The alarm worked perfectly. The problem wasn’t the alarm.
I turned it off.
I can do that with God too. I hear the nudge clearly enough, but instead of saying no, I tell myself I’ll get to it later. Somehow, later sounds much better than no.
There are legitimate times when God tells us to wait. There are also times when circumstances mean we simply cannot act immediately. But there are other times when I know what He has asked of me and I am simply putting it off.
That is where I need to be honest with myself.
Repeatedly ignoring conviction can make it easier to ignore it the next time. The danger of repeatedly silencing an alarm isn’t that the alarm stops working. It’s that I become practised at ignoring it.
That doesn’t mean I should become anxious about every thought or impression that crosses my mind. Responsiveness to God is not the same thing as impulsiveness.
I think young Samuel gives us a beautiful picture of that in 1 Samuel 3.
Samuel heard his name called, but he didn’t initially recognise that it was God speaking. He went to Eli for help. Eli eventually understood what was happening and taught Samuel how to respond:
“Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”
Samuel listened. He received counsel from someone wiser than himself. He recognised the Lord’s voice.
And then came the difficult part.
He obeyed.
The word God gave Samuel wasn’t an easy one to deliver. He was afraid to tell Eli what he had heard. Yet when the time came, Samuel told him everything.
Listening mattered. Discernment mattered. But eventually, responsiveness required obedience.
Maybe that is the inventory I need to take from time to time. Not endlessly digging through my past looking for every nudge I might possibly have missed, but asking a much simpler question:
Is there something I already know God has asked me to do that I keep putting off?
If there is, perhaps I don’t need another alarm.
Perhaps I simply need to get out of bed.
Until next time,
Kath
