When God Wants Your Attention

One morning, a bird made an unusual call from the woods behind our house. I scanned the trees to search for the source, but I couldn’t see the bird. However, its loud, piercing call continued. The bird chirped out what sounded like, “I miss you, I miss you!” It repeated the phrase over and over again. The words touched my heart, as if God was telling me He missed me.

Would Almighty God actually seek fellowship with us?

Does God miss the sweet communion with His people? The answer is a resounding yes! Remember, God walked and talked to Adam and Eve in the garden. The first couple had fellowship with Him every day.
God wants that fellowship with us, too. He desires for us to talk with Him through prayer. God wants us to read the Bible, His love letter to us, and listen to what He says. He loves us and seeks after us the way a shepherd goes after a lost sheep. God uses many means to get us focused on Him.

How God gets our attention

Affliction

One of the quickest ways to get our attention is to give us a problem, a sickness, or a tough situation. God wants us to turn to Him for help. He also reminds us that He is in charge when He gives us something beyond our control.
In our own experience, my husband and I had all sorts of problems arise before we decided to move. That last year, the weather pattern changed, and we got six inches of lake effect snow over our house each day of the winter. Only one-tenth of a mile away, there was no snow! An ice dam on the roof caused leaks and expensive repairs. Then in summer, the bugs became intolerable. We had an endless procession of pests – gnats, tiger mosquitos, black flies, green flies, horse flies, and yellow jackets! These and other situations caused us to conclude God wanted us to move.

Words of other people

After God showed us He wanted us to move, we asked Him to show us where. The very next day we experienced something so bazaar that it caught our attention. No matter where either of us went, we encountered people, even strangers, who mentioned North Carolina. After two weeks of this, we got the message and asked God to stop it. From that moment on until we moved, we heard no further mention of North Carolina. God had certainly used other people’s words to direct us.

A near-miss experience

Have you ever had a close call and realized that God had divinely protected you? Such situations cause us to think about the Lord. We had such an experience during our move. On our way to North Carolina, we drove five hundred miles through a snowstorm with a loaded car and two bikes on a rack. We had no trouble until we stopped at a car wash by our house to remove the road salt from our vehicle. When we stopped in the parking lot, the bicycles and the rack fell off the car. To our horror, we discovered that the rack was held on by only one loose bolt. What if it had fallen off when we were on the crowded beltway around Washington D.C.? God had protected us the entire way and waited until we stopped to show us what He’d done!

Scripture that jumps out at you

A certain verse speaks to your heart. The Holy Spirit applies this to your life, and you realize God is giving you a message. He whispers words of love and encouragement, or words of rebuke, or commands for us to follow.

Nature

When God wants us to see His majesty, He shows us breathtaking scenery. We experience His power in a thunderstorm or an earthquake. When He wants us to discern his wisdom, He shows us the intricate designs of His creation. All nature reflects His glory. If He wants to get our attention, He can even use a bird that calls out, “I miss you, I miss you!”