Know God's Voice When He Speaks

We live in a busy world. So busy that it is difficult at times to give our undivided attention to any one thing. I’ve mentioned before how I grew up during a professional time when multitasking was heavily praised. If you didn’t have the ability to work on several things at once, you weren’t highly valued. I’ve come to think of this a little differently these days. I simply can not give 100% to more than one thing at the same time. Think about the logic of that. As an example, if I’m fully devoted to hockey, then how can I also be fully devoted to football? The answer is simple. I’m not. 

I spent time thinking about this more often as I’ve noticed my ability to tune out my coworkers has gotten a little too good. I had one instance in recent weeks where I did not realize I was not listening to one of my peers until she directly asked me a question that included my name. I was suddenly very embarrassed because she’d been talking to me all that time and I had not been listening!

The more I thought about that, the more it occurred to me that we end up doing this same thing in our spiritual lives. We are quick to insist that God isn’t speaking to us but we are rarely so quick to acknowledge that, at times, we aren’t listening. This is because God does not have our full attention. We like to say he does. Many of us are being tugged and pulled in so many different directions that even the time we claim to sit aside for God becomes split focused time. We harvest it in order to accomplish something else. Our priorities become mixed and we once again become people striving to accomplish several things at once.

Yet, our time spent with God is one area in our lives where we shouldn’t do that. He deserves our undivided attention. Afterall, if I’m not fully listening to him, then how can I confidently say he’s not listening to me? Think about how we do that to one another. One of my pet peeves is when people talk over me. It interrupts my thought process. This is exactly how many of us live our lives though. Spiritually and naturally. Just as we don’t allow those that are close to us to finish their thought, we do the same with God. There are millions of things we want to list and discuss with him during our time of prayer, but the reality is that we also need to spend a portion of that time listening for his response. So, learning to be better listeners is something we should strive to do on a daily basis. Look for God in new ways in your life, but keep your ears open for him as well. You may find that he’s been speaking to you all along. You just weren’t fully committed to the conversation. Let that be a change this season.

Exchange your ashes for God’s beauty

Isaiah 61:3