Shut Up and Listen!: Lessons God was Teaching Me When I Didn't Realize I was Learning

by Kimberly Johnson

Each of our lives is filled with good days and bad, highs and lows, joy and heartache. Shut Up and Listen is a compilation of experiences directly from the author’s life. So that is what you are holding in your hands today. A group of stories, a bunch of lessons, moments of joy, frustration, laughter heartbreak, and tears, sometimes all rolled up in one. God had a purpose with these lessons. He gave them to me to give to you. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Cleaning off the Peanut Butter I got glasses when I was in third grade. My vision wasn’t terrible but I was slightly nearsighted so Dr. Moore prescribed me with glasses. The biggest problem with not needing glasses bad was that I constantly took them off and put them down, and then forgot where I had set them. I was constantly in trouble with my parents, “where are your glasses?” “Put your glasses on” and I honestly spent as much time trying to find where I had put them last as I did wearing them. My sisters took this as a challenge, so when they would notice my glasses sitting around somewhere; they would move them to another, even more difficult spot. This day, I was in trouble and had been looking everywhere for my glasses while my sisters sat back and watched. I was in tears and exasperated. “I have looked everywhere!” I wailed. Finally, a response “You can’t have looked everywhere, have you looked in the peanut butter jar?” At first, I ignored them and then slowly I realized that was an actual hint. Sure enough, I opened the cupboard door, grabbed the peanut butter, unscrewed the lid and pulled my glasses out of the sticky, filthy, greasy, peanut butter. How disgusting. We come to God like that. Filthy. Disgusting. We think there is no way He would want to have anything to do with us. But He gently cleans us up. He offers us grace as he washes away the filth and the muck we have been dragging ourselves through. And he adores us. 1 John 1:7 says “But if we live in the light in the same way as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin.” Imagine that. The God of the universe loves you, and me, enough to wash away every sin, every wrongdoing, and every mistake. He then removes it from His memory bank. We should learn from our past, but we need to ask for forgiveness and leave it there, in the past, back where it belongs. It took a while to get the peanut butter out of the hinges of my glasses, but eventually they were good as new. I would like to say I didn't make the same mistake of losing my glasses again, but I did. Thank you God for cleansing me from my sins and making me as good as new in your sight, and for continually forgiving me, even when I continue to make mistakes. What transgression do you need to wash away and forget? What is holding you back?

212 pages, Paperback

Published September 7, 2017

About the author

Kimberly Johnson is professor of English at Brigham Young University.