The good listener

 This week's verses are Genesis 18:17-19:

 Then the Lord said, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? After all, Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on the earth may receive blessing through him. I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then the Lord will give to Abraham what he promised him.”

These verses are worth meditating on. God decides to share his intimate plans with Abraham, a mere mortal. God recognizes the relationship and invests in it. He knew he would know Abraham and his descendants over the course of eternity and decided it would be good to share with him what was about to happen.

We often see God as kind of distant, like he's busy and occupied in his own stuff until we reach out to him. But in fact, he is interested in knowing us. As we reach out to him and trust him, he begins to open up to us. Probably we're not going to have as significant an impact on the world as Abraham, but we're still God's creation and he still loves us.

So, imagine this in your life: Accept the possibility of it: What if God decided to tell you what was going to happen next in the world? You, specifically.  What would you do with that? Abraham used it to intercede to try to save as many people as he could before his nephew Lot's world was destroyed. Maybe knowing he would likely do that was why God shared with him? Maybe he's not as interested in sharing with someone who is just going to give him the thumbs-up emoji and go back to scrolling?

We talk a lot about talking to God, but we don't often look at the circumstances of God talking to us. God and Abraham had a special kind of relationship going. They interacted. They shared meals. They trusted each other. Is your relationship with God like that? Do you guys have a long term thing?

 God may have chosen Abraham, and chose to confide in him, because of the kind of relationship they had. Abraham is never too busy to make time for God. You never hear Abraham telling God, "I've got an important meeting. Then I've got to watch the kids. Then there's a game on." Even when he's caught up in the emotional storm of trying to murder his son, he's still interruptible. He's flexible in all things except for what God asks him to do.

Maybe if we want God to visit us, to tell us deep secrets, to give us the desires of our heart as a surprise gift, maybe we need to be more of the kind of person Abraham was. Maybe God was comfortable to share with Abraham because he knew Abraham would be listening. Are we listening? And maybe he was willing to show up at Abraham's house because he knew Abraham's plans were all less important than welcoming him. And when he was there, it wasn't the usual "OK I'm going to sit in an uncomfortable position for 20 minutes and pretend to listen, but then I have a list of demands" he gets from a lot of us.

So, this week, ask yourself, "Do I have time?" Do you want to know a secret? You can make time whenever God arrives. Even if you're a pilot in the middle of landing a plane, we have robots for that now. You can always spare a minute. Mid-sentence. Mid-step. Your choice depends on the kind of relationship you want to have with God.