“What’s it gonna take to get you to talk to Me?”
Apparently for me, the answer to that question is “Man, I really don’t know. Seems like even falling to my death off a cliff isn’t enough.”
Which is really sick and twisted, isn’t it?
It takes some time seeing reason in an accident like mine. Honestly, from the outside in, it looks like a massive, bone-headed stupid mistake, and on my part, it really was. We were on that hiking trip to see the crag at the end of the trail, but I took a detour, made a brash, quick decision to inspect a waterfall halfway up the trail, and ended up at the bottom of a cliff with a shattered foot, elbow, and a face covered in blood. Needless to say, we never made it to the crag.
And I feel like a complete moron, not only because I made that idiotic decision to inspect that cliff, but largely because literally thousands of people have been praying for me in this, for survival on the day of the accident, for healing since, and I can count the times I’ve talked to Jesus in this whole thing on one hand.
What a joke, right?
I wrote a whole blog post about how it happened; how I was ready to go because on the way down I saw no other options for me getting off that mountain than in a body bag, and I figured, “If this is it, Jesus, I guess this is it. Take me home.” And it inspired a lot of people and everybody applauded me. But honestly, since then, I don’t know how many times I’ve actually spent talking to Jesus about this, about life, about Him, but I do know it’s less than five, and for that I am utterly ashamed.
So here I am, lying in bed in my grandparents’ house in Dallas, and I hear Him whisper,
“What’s it gonna take to get you to talk to Me, dude? You should’ve died on that mountain and I got you out of there. You talk about peace, and how you want to find My will in this but then you go trying to find that peace in all the wrong places—timing, lust, logic, even sleep—but you’re so wrong, brother. You’re not going to find peace there no matter how hard you try to make it fit. There’s only one way, and you know it.”
So I’m beating myself up because I know. I know exactly what that one way is, but I’ve ignored it for almost a month. I need to just talk to You. I need to just talk with You.
What I need to do is to pray.
I heard one pastor say that prayer doesn’t do anything. We put so much hope in prayer itself like the praying is gonna make anything happen through its own power. The real power is in Jesus and how He chooses to act.
Well, duh.
But that doesn’t mean that this open line of communication, this connection to the Maker of the Stars is useless. It’s not pointless. He uses it to soothe my heart. He inhabits it to show me His presence in my life in a way unlike any other. Prayer is not me falling to my knees and pleading with teary eyes that He heals me tomorrow, then walking away wondering if He’ll really do it—it’s dialogue. Sometimes it’s just listening to Him. It’s two-way communication, and as a talker, that’s something I need desperately.
So I guess I have to make a choice tonight, and then again tomorrow, and later on tomorrow again, then again, and then the next day, to keep that line of communication open. It’s not a one-time switch-flip that provides a constant dialogue (although I can have that dialogue with Him all day if I really want to). It’s recurring. It’s constantly happening again and again, not constantly happening without interruption.
God help me if I don’t take advantage of this opportunity to keep breathing–if I take it for granted. I sure as heck know I didn’t get here because of my superior knowledge or skills. I’m still here because He wants me to be. So I’d better start talking and see what needs to be done.
Ty Hirsch 