LISTEN!

I've got a challenge for you. Wherever you are right now, whatever you're doing, listen. Identify every single sound that you hear. Every cricket, every bird, every car, every machine, every voice, every background noise. How many sounds had you filtered out? To what had you paid no attention?

I love the outdoors, especially forests. It renews me to spend time there, to be away from the cacophony of everyday noise, to hear what God has made instead of what we have. At first the quiet seems overwhelming—I've found that it takes me time to acclimate. In the first hours, I have to work to listen and see. I mentally rush as if I'm late on my commute to work, focused on a goal. I must listen to the layers of the sounds of solitude. The wind rustles the trees, an insect flies by, a bird sings, a deer snorts, a brook babbles—a thousand thousand small sounds surround me. The quiet place was not quiet at all. By the second day, my ears have awakened. By the third, it's normal to hear again.

I've got a more important challenge for you. What is God quietly speaking, what is every word? Quiet yourself to hear the still, small voice. It can't be adequately done in an hour or two...

What if God is speaking right now and no one is poised to listen? What if He is pouring out wisdom like rain, giving direction in how to follow Him in these days, and we are in our homes watching YouTube videos, not even remotely hearing the gentle patter of grace falling like rain outside our doors? What if His creation is filled with His voice and all that we hear is the sound of the things we have made?

It's always important to listen. But there are times when it's literally crucial. The honk as you step off the curb without looking; the heaven sent encouragement or admonition at exactly the right moment; the discouragement filling a friend's voice, telling you to cancel plans and spend time with him now; the inexplicable sense that a plan is very right or entirely wrong in spite of evidence to the contrary....

Perhaps its that kind of time. I believe it is.

He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple. The Lord GOD has opened My ear; (Isaiah 50)

The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him...(Psalms 25)