Lately I’ve heard come from my own mouth the whisper of God to “Pay Attention.”

 

I’ve written on this before but this time it’s an entirely different message.

 

As I was teaching our Equipped class to “pay attention” to our surroundings so that we don’t miss the work of the Holy Spirit, I could feel a weight to the words.

 

Even this morning comes a resounding, “Pay attention” once again that has placed me in a pondering position.

 

If you are uncertain of where God is wanting to go, “Pay attention” to your surroundings. Often He has unraveled His desires by placing “needs” before me. The “need” pointed me somewhere and sometimes it was not where I had planned on going.

 

Every single ordering of steps was Holy Spirit causing me to “pay attention” to something He was at work in.

 

He is the rope pulling you into a directional destiny but if you’re not “paying attention” you surely might miss it. Likewise, if you’re entirely stubborn with your own will, you will resist Him.

 

When provision is coming for a certain “thing” in ministry, I am “paying attention.” God is providing for what He wants to do. If provision dries up, I’m also “paying attention” that perhaps a thing is over.

 

The “paying attention” is a stance that always prepares us to see God at work among us. Henry Blackaby says, “Find where God is at work and join Him there.”

 

We often enter into dead works of our own imaginations. Eventually we feel the death in it all until we are so weary we are unable to even function.

 

Pay attention.

 

When we began our grief group as we opened our new building over time the people in the group shifted. I suddenly realized everyone in the group were grieving a divorce rather than the death of a loved one.

 

I paid attention…and we shifted that group to a Divorce Recovery.

 

It was the heart of God manifesting in a visible need but I had to be willing to let go of what I thought we should do and move into what God wanted to do.

 

That group has been a tremendous blessing to us and to others.

 

I am glad I paid attention.

 

I would encourage you to sit with the Lord and ponder what’s happening around you.

 

Walk through places of fruitfulness and places that seem to be lacking fruit.

 

Then ask the Lord to help you “Pay attention” to what you see.