Listening To God

Over the past few years I have written about our need to listen to the Voice of God for the direction that we need.  You that have been involved in any service where I have ministered the Word of God have also heard this need being declared on numerous occasions.  The modern day church must commit ourselves to hear what God is saying to us both individually as well as collectively as the Body of Christ.  The Spirit of the Lord has raised this up in my spirit over the past few days and I felt that I must share it with you once more via this blog post.  The Spirit has placed several reminders in my path over the past few days and one of these reminders is from a devotional that I read a few days ago.  Pay close attention to the flow of the story so that you can capture the essence of Truth that is being revealed.

In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God: "Before refrigerators, people used ice houses to preserve their food. Ice houses had thick walls, no windows and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the ice houses and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.

One man lost a valuable watch while working in an ice house. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn't find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the ice house during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. I closed the door,'' the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.'' Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough and quiet enough to hear. Yes, Jesus assures us that our heavenly Father always listens to us, but do we really listen to God? Do we follow the instructions of Psalm 46, "Be still, and know that I am God"? 

In the midst of all the "sawdust" of our lives will we listen for and to the Voice of God?