Weekly Devotions for 3/28

A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul – Acts 16:14 (NRSVUE)

What makes you not open to God? That was one of the questions discussed at the Midweek worship this past Wednesday. To be “not open” might mean to be closed to God, as I think it is possible to truly close ourselves off from all that God has to offer. Yet I think it is rare for someone to truly close themselves to God. More frequently, particularly among people who might be reading this devotion, to be “not open” to God comes from being attached to too many other things. We are distracted by other goals, other priorities, and other demands on our time. We are not against God, but we get pulled away by other things.

When I was young, I loved to swim in the ocean. We’d spend a few weeks in Ocean City, MD every year, and nearly every day I would be out there in the waves for hours. I refused to come in to eat. I had no interest in playing in the sand. I just wanted to be in the waves. After hours out there, I would come in to the beach. Inevitably, over those hours I had moved a block or sometimes two down the shore. I’d have completely lost track of where my family was. This was not as scary as it sounds – my aunt and uncle ran a beach rental place so they were easy to find again – but during that time I never realized that I had drifted off. The current had slowly moved me away from where I should be, and so I never noticed it. It is the same way, I think, with these attachments. Being “not open” to God means that we slowly drift away without ever realizing it, until suddenly we look around and realize how far we have strayed. Because of this, we need God to open our hearts so that we might recognize what God is doing in our lives and help us to stay planted where we belong.