Last Sunday morning, when I woke up, I didn’t have the drive to go to church. The gas was just not in my spiritual tank to propel me to the house of the Lord. So, I was there on my bed, pondering what to do. I am sure many of us have been in this mood at some point.

I did not want to go to church just for the sake of going to church; I never want to go to church just for the sake of going. I always say, once my foot steps into the house of the Lord, I must have a specific and definitive reason for doing so. It might be to pray earnestly on that day, worship more than ever, give someone a word of encouragement, or take a lot of notes and set my heart to learn. Many are the reasons, but I must always have a reason. So, I started to pray and asked God to birth a reason in my soul, and bless God, the answer came.

The Lord led me to the scripture in John 6:60-66 where Jesus was talking to his disciples, and He told them something difficult for them to hear. So much so that the disciples at the time said the following, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”. As the story goes, in the exact moment, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed Him”.

On reflecting on this story, what rose in my heart was, “Lord, I never want to walk away from you because of hearing something hard”. This scripture was the gas station that filled up my tank and caused me to arise from my bed and go to church. In the final analysis, I attended church last Sunday because I wanted to hear something hard. I sought a word of correction, edification, and guidance to elevate my spiritual life to a higher/deeper level (2 Timothy 3:16). I went to church because we as believers must never be afraid to hear something hard, something that goes against our thinking or feeling, we must always be open to having our minds renewed by God’s word, albeit hard or soft.

Allow me to build upon this by sharing an experience I had with my nephew, Kaiden, when I visited my sister recently. I saw Kaiden all by himself, sulking with his hands folded and looking downtrodden around the dining table. So, I walked up to him and asked what was wrong, and he responded by saying, “Daddy stopped him from playing video games because he wanted to watch football”. Of course, as the good uncle I am 😊, I tried to encourage Kaiden by suggesting that he could use the opportunity to sit with Daddy and enjoy the game together, but Kaiden wasn’t having any of it. To him, what Daddy told him was too hard to hear; therefore, he ran away and resided by himself, all upset, in the dining room alone.

Let me ask you a question now. What is your attitude and posture when someone tells you something that is hard to hear? Is there is Kaiden in you?

What’s the morale of this story with my nephew? The moral is, only a ‘child’ gets upset with the hard teaching of their father. In the same way, in the spiritual realm, only a childish person (immature) gets upset with the teachings of our Heavenly Father. When our hearts are hard and wayward, we don’t fully embrace His words, or we selectively accept them, holding fast to only those words that suit our purpose or benefit. This is why I say, “we must always be willing and open to hear something hard from the Lord”. Always remember, “hard hearts never hear hard things”.

This is why it’s always helpful to pause and ask ourselves whether there is anything God says in His Word, or tells you directly or through someone else, that you are not following . If you are not doing it, then that is your hard that you need to address! That is your hard that is making you stumble, stay stunted or even pushing you backwards.

Let me close by saying this. A few months ago, I was contemplating what makes things difficult in our lives, and do you know what God told me very clearly? He said this, “Dane, what makes things hard is when people do not take the teaching”. In that moment, I was like, “What Lord?” Then the Father went on to expand and say:

  1. When a disobedient child does not heed their parents’ teachings, things become hard.
  2. When the student does not take the teaching from their schoolteacher, their life will become hard.
  3. When the employee does not take the teaching and learnings from their boss, the job environment can become hard.
  4. When you don’t take the teaching and advice from a trusted friend the issue you raised remains and becomes harder.
  5. When a couple fails to heed their counselor’s advice, their marriage can become challenging.
  6. When a believer does not take the teaching from God’s Word through their Pastor, their Christian walk can become hard.

This list can go on, but you get my point. When your heart and spirit cannot take the teaching, things become hard/difficult in your life. This is why a humble and teachable spirit is such a critical character trait to possess and a great prize in God’s eyes (Micah 6:8)

So today is a good time to pause and reflect on our lives. I mean, truly stop and reflect and see where we have gone off course. I bet the root cause is that you rejected some good advice (spiritual or otherwise) that you found hard or challenging to apply and accepted your own ways. However, it is not too late. Use this blog as an opportunity, as a gift from God, as a word from God, as a sign from God, to make the 180-degree turn you need to make.

In the Bible passage in John 6, Jesus states, “The words I have given to you are spirit and they are life.” They are life, my friend; they are not mere words, but spirit and life. Remember that..!

Today, I encourage us all to move beyond hearers of the word to be doers of the word. Let’s stretch forth our hands and hearts and obtain life by doing what God tells us.

PS: Dane Miller was last seen with outstretched arms, saying, “Lord, teach me to have a teachable spirit and always open to hearing something hard”.

Your Brother in the Lord,

Dane Miller – “God is the Author, I am the Pen”

Authored Book – What is the Woman Saying – Lessons from Biblical Women.

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