Smack.

God made me, so he knows me better than anyone else.  He knows that sometimes he has to smack me right upside the head in order for me to say "aha!  that's what you've been trying to tell me!"  Well...he just hit me.  Smack in the face.


I'm reading Karen Kingsbury's new book "Learning".  (I could go on about my love for KK and the characters she writes about.  I pray for them.  I think about them.  They are real to me... but that's for another time).  In it, KK talks about God already knowing the plans that He has for us, and that He promises those plans are good.  I remember reading this section "underlining" the particular quote on my kindle, making a mental note to come back to it- and then continued on.  Fail.  God was trying to tell me something at that moment and I just "made a note".  I never even went back to it.  Not yet anyway.
Then today, I was reading an excerpt from the book "Radical Together" by David Platt.  We did a few sermons about this book at church and it's on my to read list, but I haven't gotten to it yet.  Well, here's the part that Platt says that I felt the WALLOP of God's hand on my forehead.


In our lives and in the church , we are never without a revelation from God. At all times you and I have his message to use in all its power, authority, clarity and might. We don't have to work to come up with a word from God; we simply have to trust the word he's already given us. - David Platt, Radical Together


The realization that I have been missing something for a very long time was too much to handle.  My "aha!" moment as some call it.  I understood something very fundamental for the very first time. I ask and ask and ask, I pray and beg for God to speak to me, to make clear his purpose in my life.  I know that I walk with Him daily. He's right here, right this moment. I've never doubted that. But in all of my blind asking and and angry seeking, in all of my fears that His voice is too quiet or my ears don't work right, I'm not going to the place where he speaks the loudest.  I've had His plans for me all along.  Right there in my hands.  Confession:  KK always jumps to the top of my reading list when a new book comes out.  Do you know what book has never jumped to the top of my reading list?  You got it.  


SMACK.


There it is again.  This time it's my own hand against my forehead.  I can't believe I've been missing it.  It's been in front of me all along.