Worship

Scripture

Sometimes I feel like I’m hard of hearing, but what I’ve realized, with assistance from my wife and daughter, is that I suffer from a disease called “selective hearing”. I can be looking directly at someone and find myself not paying much attention to the words coming out of their mouth. It’s fairly embarrassing to be looking directly at someone that has been speaking for two plus minutes and say, “I’m sorry what was that again”. This is an affliction that takes work to overcome-laser focus, eliminating distractions and focusing intently on what is being said. I’m still not perfect at this but am working to get better daily. 

It can be equally difficult to hear God’s voice. So often in scripture, especially in the Old Testament, we find that God had very direct interaction with biblical characters. Moses and Joshua are fairly recent examples of this interaction as they regularly heard from the Lord directly. In 1 Samuel 3:1 the Bible says, “in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.” I’ve often felt that it would be much easier for us to know what God wanted from us if we heard from him directly or audibly like many of the Old Testament characters did…but would it be? 1 Sam 3:7 says “Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from the Lord before.” It literally took Samuel three times before he understood God was the one calling out to him. Samuel had to have encounters with God time and time again to begin to clearly recognize the voice of God.

My conclusion is that it’s probably not any easier to hear God’s voice whether it’s audible or not. I think more importantly it hinges on our ability to focus and listen. The same things I do to actively listen to others are the same things I need to do in order to hear God’s voice. I believe there is a reason Jesus left his disciples regularly to hear from God. He got away from the noise and distractions and went to a place he could focus on hearing from God. May we use Christ as our example and learn to listen more for the still small voice of God. Find your focus today, your quiet place and open your spirit to listen, you may be surprised to hear from God in a new way.

Prayer

HONOR GOD

There is nothing too big for our God. Honor His greatness!

ASK GOD

SUBMIT TO GOD