A-Ha Moment

How wonderful when everyone is home!
That is how it has been for the past five days.
Meals, fellowship, conversations…just being together.
It is a gift that I don’t take for granted!

I love to watch and listen to my five children relate to each other.
Even though they are adults, there is still the same brother and sister dynamics.
That is a good thing.
The stories…they each can finish.
The friendly teasing…the inside jokes…the remembering!

It is not slipping back into the old ways.
It is slipping into new ways…with old roots…solid roots…family roots!

It is so important when family has bedrock.
Families expand and grow…but the bedrock holds.
It is even more important when a family’s bedrock is Christ.

By the end of the first evening home…someone suggests playing a game.
Dutch Blitz card game…at the kitchen island…is usually the most competitive.
Five Second Rule…Buzz Word…Catch Phrase…always fun!

A game that was played this time was Mad Gab.
Teams have three minutes to sound out three puzzles.
The puzzles are known as mondegreens and can only be discerned by listening.
Reading the puzzle silently will not help because the phonetic sounds have to be decoded into meaningful words.

It is really a test of your brain…to take seemingly nonsense words and say them aloud over and over until a real word or phrase is heard.
The only thing I can compare it to…would be trying to figure out a vanity license plate.
You sit at a stoplight and see one of those license plates on the car in front of you.
You read it and sometimes say it…over and over…until the “a-ha” moment comes.

It was so funny to hear them play this game last night.
I happened to be in the kitchen when they first started.
Being an “arm-chair” player was easy!
When the pressure was on…when the timer was ticking…it was much more difficult!

What amazed me was the “brick wall” that inevitably got hit!
Often, a player would get stuck on something.
A word, a sound, an inflection…got stuck in the player’s head.
It was impossible to let go…and think outside the box.

Jesus taught in parables.
The “a-ha” moment, for His listeners, happened much later.

His disciples asked Him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that though seeing, they may not see; though hearing they may not understand.”
(Luke 8:9,10)

Parables.
Jesus’ disciples seemed to understand.
To others in the crowd…the words sounded like Mad Gab.
The words were heard as a puzzle.
The people needed help decoding the sounds into meaningful words.

He who has ears, let him hear. (Luke 8:8)
Jesus said this after many of His parables.

Parables were a wonderful way to teach because there was seemingly no closure.
The listener walks away…pondering what he heard.
In the stillness and the quiet of reflection, you see yourself in the parable.
The great “a-ha” moment…when the parable becomes clear.

I’m the woman who last the coin.
I’m the prodigal son.
I’m the older brother.
I’m the lost sheep.

If the heart is not made new, even when truth is spoken…it is heard as nonsense.
Until the Holy Spirit opens the heart, the eyes, the ears, the mind…there is a brick wall.
An impasse…a mental block…a veil.

But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. (2 Corinthians 3:14-16)

We need the Holy Spirit to turn nonsense sounds into meaningful words.
We need the Holy Spirit to turn those meaningful words into life changing truth.
We need the Holy Spirit to give us a new heart, new eyes, new ears…the mind of Christ.
We need the Holy Spirit to enable us to experience the “a-ha” moment.
The moment when it is all clear.

The Mad Gab box has one sentence as its catch phrase.
…it is not what you say, it’s what you hear!

For those who are in Christ…
It does matter what Jesus says.
It does matter what you hear.

Jesus’ words are not nonsense…they are TRUTH!
No time to be an “arm-chair” player.
The stakes are too high.

Let’s pray for God to use us.
Use us…in the power of His Holy Spirit…to speak His truth for others to hear.

I will open My mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old – what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from our children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done. (Psalm 78:2-4)