Sometimes the obvious is just so obvious that it’s not . . .

I’ve heard that men are less attuned to themselves than are females. From my personal experience I think that would probably be rather true; that is, its something I know is true, but that I’m loathe admitting in the presence of my wife. Most of my buddies would agree. In those rare moments of introspection when I try to be objective, I usually fall short and simply become frustrated or start thinking about something else more important, like who might be winning the ballgame.

This week, God decided to stop by and help me out on this. He’s really good about that. But, just between us, when He just drops in like that, I find myself looking momentarily at the back door and wondering if He’d notice that I had slipped out. Ever been called in the middle of your evening meal by a telemarketer or had the doorbell ring on a Saturday afternoon and opened the door to find two young men in white shirts and ties standing there or just know that the last piece of cherry pie is in the fridge, develop an inexplicable desire to eat it, but when you open the fridge door you discover that someone else has already beaten you to it? Those are often the sensations I have when think about the possibly of God dropping by for a visit.

Yet, every time He’s been by and has left, I’m in a state of wonder. “How’d He do that?” That is exactly what happened this week.

I desperately want to live by the tenant of Romans 12:1-2:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

In His unique way, He informed me know that a) He made me a particular way a really long time ago, b) He has brought me through my particular life in the way He did to get me ready to do what I’m supposed to do, and c) It is now time to do what He put me here to do because I am the only one on the face of the earth who can do it.

Huh? Really? Whoa!

I had become so “well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.” God said it is time to grow up and pay attention. I’ve always been who He wanted me to be, I just didn’t act like it. As He said: “fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.” He said that He can bring out the best in me but that I just needed to let Him do it.

“Quickly respond,” He said.

I am. And I even told my wife that she had been right all these years.