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God's Attentiveness
Brian Mashburn
December 9, 2007
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The Attentiveness of God
Master: Dear disciple, do you know what is worse than the oppression of man?
Disciple: Tell me, master, please.
Master: Worse is when man is unaware of the oppression within which he lives.
Disciple: I think I understand, teacher. When man is unaware of the oppression they are living in, they do not know to do something about it. They become conditioned to expect it. They do not know that you offer something incredibly better. They have accepted "less life" than is available to them. They may have even fallen in love with their oppression.
Master: What you say is true, my child. When mankind does not know to groan in their slavery, to cry out to God for help out of their oppression, then there is no glory for God to be attentive to them.
Disciple: What do you mean, rabbi?
Master: God hears groaning. Cries for help go up to God and have a special place in His heart. God looks upon and is concerned with the oppressed who know it and need Him. He is attentive to those who are attentive to their own oppressed conditions.
Disciple: In some nations on your good earth, Master, the oppression is obvious to its citizens. In others, all appears to be well to them.
Master: All of the stories in the Book that I have left for mankind, teach of God's bias towards the hurting, the weak, the oppressed, and the enslaved. His favor comes to them when they call. His attention turns to them for His own glory.
Disciple: What would you have me do, Lord?
Master: Count your blessings everyday, disciple, and let that do it's good work of making you grateful. But never forget to look deeply at yourself and your world to see the oppression that you live under, so that it can do it's good work of making you desperate.
Disciple: Why, Lord, would you want me desperate?
Master: Have you not learned, student? Only true desperation turns a man's heart to God to ask for His attention.