I met a lady the other day.
She was a friend’s relative visiting from another city.
It was at church.
The lady looked at me when we were introduced and I offered her my hand to shake.
She took my hand and then looked at someone else while she was shaking it.
I was slightly offended.
It was rude and dismissive.
That’s what Jesus must feel like often.
So many people would rather move on and talk to someone else rather than Him.
I mainly forgive her. Now, the impression she has made on me has a feeling associated with it.
Dismissiveness.
Should it matter to me?
Perhaps not.
I didn’t cry.
Is that a way I want to be perceived by anyone else? That I dismiss them? Absolutely not.
More than that, I never want God to feel that way from me.
I know He has, whether toward Him Himself or toward the least of these.
I used to do that to God somewhat.
I would have my exciting things that happened in my life, things that He did, answers to prayer,
and before I gave Him glory, I’d call one of my closest friends.
I think that hurts God’s feelings.
There is no way to know that, but I think it does.
If He is our first love, then He should be the one we think of first when we want to share something.
There are a few times in scripture I noticed God was dismissed:
And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet,
until his disease was exceeding great:
yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. 2 Chronicles 16:12
Moses dismissed the Lord. God said Speak to the Rock…
Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. Numbers 20:8
,…And Moses struck the rock instead…
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. Numbers 20:11
Jonah dismissed the Lord when he didn’t want to warn the Ninevites.
King David dismissed the Lord when he numbered the armies.
Balaam dismissed the Lord and the Donkey helped set him straight.
Time after time, God was dismissed.
Take a look into your own life, the way you relate to God and others.
Dismissing is common in our culture.
It’s easy to dismiss as we like what we like and we love to feed our flesh.
Lord, Jesus, help our focus to be on You and your will. Help us to obey You when You ask us or prompt us to do something and help us to always keep You in first place. In Your name we pray, Amen.