Words

I know I’ve told you all how much I love to fly commercially – anywhere really, but a couple of weeks ago I flew into Lawton, Oklahoma. A very small airport that still uses the stairs to offload passengers.

During my flight back I had a layover in DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) for 3 hours. If you have never been to this airport – it’s huge! I decided I wanted to walk around since I had so much time. In the process, I kept smelling food: Chick-fil-A along with nicer restaurants with Italian and steak, fries, Asian food. It’s like going to the theater and thinking, “I’m not going to get a snack” then you enter the doors and there it is, THE SMELL of popcorn!!! I broke after about 2 hours and went to a place called Pinks which serves fro-yo. I was pretty excited about getting the vanilla with all my favorite toppings. I glanced at the sign seeing a picture of the vanilla and chocolate cups of fro-yo. I instantly decided to get vanilla and went digging in my purse for the appropriate bills to pay with. Of course, everything shifts when you travel so my wallet was down in the bottom and I was struggling to get it to surface. I looked up when the server asked me if she could help me with my order. I said, “Yes, I would like a medium vanilla please.” She commented with a single syllable word, but being distracted still with my wallet, I asked for clarification. I didn’t understand it and had to ask again. She said the word again, and I still didn’t understand, so I asked a third time. Then embarrassed and still not understanding, (I wasn’t sure if my hearing was off) her accent was causing the misunderstanding, or if it was the noise causing the communication breakdown.

In desperation, I looked up at the sign and instead of looking at the pictures, miracle … I read the sign. “Original” or “Hazelnut”. I’m still not sure of the word she was saying, ladies, but clearly my request for vanilla did not explain what I was in hopes of purchasing. After paying what I owed it occurred to me as I sat to enjoy my topping rich “Original” fro-yo, that many times I treat God’s Word in the same way. I look at a passage, even read it and cruise on to the next set of words, but I don’t hear His voice. I wonder if you struggle with this. Do we stop to ask what He’s saying to us, what we are learning about him, others, ourselves? Isn’t it true that we can want something, think we are going about getting it, or understanding it and miss it altogether? My prayer for us is that we can slow down, enjoy the richness of God’s Word and hear his voice. 

- Traci Hollingsworth