Listening ...

How many know there’s a big difference between hearing and listening? This difference is one that I’m constantly experiencing with the kids ... The other night, I was ‘passionately parenting’, trying to get the kids to help get the table set for dinner. As I repeated the request at least a half dozen times, I finally elevated my voice to that level that wakes the dog and shakes the windows ... apparently the only level my kids can hear ... and said ‘DOES ANYONE HEAR ME?!?!’. Although they did stop the wrestling, I was met with blank stares and muffled responses. Pressing, I said 'Emma, what did I say?!' ... With a question in her voice she responded, 'Quit wrestling?'... frustrated, I directed my glare to number two and asked 'Sam, what did I say?!' ... 'Get ready for bed?' was his guess ... Looking to Isaac, I asked again 'Isaac, what did I say?' ... 'Clean the table off.', he flatly answered. Exasperated, I asked 'If you can hear me, why don’t you listen?', to which he gave a classic answer, 'I didn’t know you were talking to me.'

I’ve come to the conclusion that while hearing is a gift from God, listening is a choice.

I would like to think I’m a good listener, but I’m just not. I want to be, but I’m such a task-oriented person that my mind is usually running a mile a minute thinking beyond the conversation in which I’m currently engaged. Can anyone relate to that? I’ve started to wonder if this applies to my walk with God ... I want nothing more then to hear from God, but I no longer think it’s a matter of Him not speaking, or me not hearing ... I’m becoming more aware that it is me not listening ... to actively pay attention with the intention to obey.

The Bible has much to say about hearing AND listening ... In Luke 8:8, Jesus ends a parable teaching with the words 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' ... The Message reads, ‘Are you listening to this? Really listening?’ ... essentially, he who has the ability to hear, let him LISTEN ... (I wonder if Jesus' voice ever reached the level that shook windows!?!) What’s interesting about this verse is that just this past week in services, the teaching was on Luke 8:4-7, but God lead me to verse 8 just today, at which time I realized it was the end to the verses from Sunday's teaching ... While the title of the sermon was ‘Greater Hearing’, the focus was on the concept of understanding what comes naturally is not necessarily what God wants for us ... sometimes it takes work to follow the supernatural promptings from God. The parable in versus 4-7 is the one about the different grounds that a farmer can sow seeds ... Pastor pointed out that weeds are natural to the ground and grow without any effort ... but seeds are not natural. To grow as they are intended, they must be carefully planted and nurtured ... As is the same with Kingdom seeds ... While God tries to plant His seeds in our life ... the kinds that will prosper us and bear fruit ... there are so many things of this world that can actually act as weeds that choke out the real fruit that God intends ... some of which are quite natural to our lives (jobs, family, church, kids, goals, desires, wants). Sometimes we have to pull these things away from the seeds that God plants, so that what He plants can grow strong, without competition for everything it needs to be fruitful.

The question is, how do you pull those weeds of the world ... the ones that entangle and confuse responsibilities with God’s calling on our heart ... or our wants with our needs ... our dreams with God-given longings ... Our busy schedules with our time meant for the Lord.

Another teaching I recently heard was on the voice of a shepherd and how in Biblical times, the shepherds did not ‘herd’ their sheep, but LEAD them from place to place. No horses or dogs, the sheep were so in tune to their shepherds voice that he just called after them and they followed ... How fitting that God would use this example for His church ... Not that we would be herded or forced to follow, but that we would learn to hear His voice and yearn to be with Him, knowing He was the source of our safety and provision. Yet ANOTHER, recent teaching reminded me that when a sheep does wander in the other direction, the further it gets away from his shepherd’s voice, the harder it is to hear and to know which way to go ... eventually they become lost but not because the shepherd quit calling, but because they stopped listening and eventually could no longer hear ... Sometimes it’s good to just head in the direction of the voice, just to make sure we can still hear ... listening is a choice.

My heart is no longer to just to hear God, but to LISTEN to Him ... to move out in that Word to where I know He wants me to be ... To cultivate what God is planting, not allowing it to be choked out with fear or pride, confusion or frustration ... but sometimes those weeds are pretty complicated buggers ... It’s not so easy to trade what is natural for something that is not, and sometimes it’s a lot of work to obey each time you receive a command ... like calling a friend or taking dinner to a neighbor ... sending money to someone or forgiving a debt ... forgiving a friend, or asking to be forgiven ... It can be a little ouchy or maybe even seem a little ‘cuckoo’, but the more that we move towards His voice, the more that we will hear ... the more the ground is worked, the easier it is to farm.

At the end of September, my dear friend Sheri and I booked a trip to Israel ... we leave in three weeks (Nov 5) and will be gone for 12 days (thru Nov 17). PLEASE BE PRAYING! I don’t know when God first whispered the thought to me, but soon after thinking about it, I opened an email that said ‘Have you ever wanted to go to Israel’? ... I picked up the phone and called Sheri and said “I think God wants me to go to Israel and I want you to go with me.” She said, ‘I’m in!’, but then we both agreed we should probably pray about it :) We dedicated it to prayer throughout the summer in which I have never met more people who had ‘just got back from Israel’! I even had a customer call back that turned into a testimony of her recent trip to Israel and ended with her praying for my decision and provision to go! Even with all of the coincidences that God kept bringing to our path, we still questioned if we were really hearing Him ... After all, it’s crazy, right?!? When it came time to decide, we agreed that all along we HAD been hearing from Him, but now it was up to us if we were going to listen, or not. We feel that whether we chose to go or to stay we will be okay; but if we don't go, we both felt like we are going to miss out on something. I can’t explain it ... I’ve had several people ask ‘why now’ and all I can answer is ‘I don’t know’ ... but the closer we get, the more confident I am that it’s what He is saying and I just have to move out in that.

Once again, my exchange with my kids caused me to pause and ask God ‘what are you wanting me to see here’ ... I don’t want to be so distracted with my wrestling with life that I’m not able to hear Him at all ... when I do hear His voice, I don’t want to miss what He has for me to do ... It takes discipline to step out whenever I hear Him speaking, but I believe that there is something big here with nurturing the Kingdom seeds that He is scattering into my field ... trusting that it’s a move towards my Shepherds voice and that the harvest is sure to come ... I just know that some day I’m going to stand in front of Him and I don’t want my response to be ‘but I didn’t know you were talking to me’. I continue to listen for my Shepherds voice because I am desperately dependent on Him and I want to be so in tune to His voice, that I don’t miss one step on this path ... following wherever He leads ...

... even if it’s on a cuckoo bus to Israel ...
MORE LORD, MORE!



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Reading on ...

A couple weeks ago, I got the opportunity to sit down with my pastor. He was very kind to check in on me, and our conversation covered many topics. One particular topic was related to hearing from God ... specifically, what do you do when you think you’ve heard from God, you receive what you think are many confirmations of that Word from God, and you walk in faith of that Word from God ... but that Word just doesn’t come true ... No reason, just asking for a friend ... what should she do with that?

His answer was from 1 Corinthians 13:9, ‘we know in part and we prophesy in part’ ... the Bible says that even when we receive what we truly believe to be a prophetic Word, it is only in part ... we just can’t possibly comprehend what God fully intends, even if God wants us to get it.

[heavy sigh] I just want to ‘get it’.

Verse 10 does give some hope, though, as it continues with ‘but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away ... for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.’

I totally know, in my Spirit, that this is God’s answer to me when I ask about all that has happened with David. If I just stop with what I see has happened and try to match it up with what I hear and/or how I feel we were being directed, it just doesn’t make sense to me ... the mirror is indeed dim ... but when I allow myself to extend the reference of time and believe that what has been promised is still yet to come, it ALL makes sense ... Oh, how I long for ‘The Perfect’ to come ...

Pastor Rich then took me to Psalm 73 ... I can’t say that this Psalm was one that I was really familiar with (which is a bummer because when your Pastor takes you to scripture in your Bible, your hope is that the page he turns to is filled with notes and highlighter ... not so much) ... I was not really familiar with this chapter, but I wish I could say the same for its theme ... it starts with a complaint ... ‘Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart’ ... Surely God is good, right? Especially to those who love Him, who seek Him, who have spent their life trying to do His will ... Surely?!? Anyone else ever have these thoughts, or is it just me? The next several verses basically continue with similar sentiments ... God, where are you? What is going on? My feet have slipped and yet the arrogant prosper ... The wicked succeed and are free of burden ... God?! The case against God continues all the way through verse 16, which says ‘all day long I have been plagued, I have been punished every morning ...’

Whew ... WAY too familiar with those sentiments.

But my pastor’s point in taking me to that Psalm was not to point out that I and the Psalmist have similar ‘issues’, as well as the same questions and complaints for God, but his real direction for me was to keep reading verses 17-28. Verse 17 continues ‘... TILL I entered the sanctuary of God, THEN I understood their final destiny’. The next verses continue ... ‘Surely I WILL place them on slippery ground, Jill ... Surely they will be destroyed and swept away ...’ and then we see a change of heart for the Psalmist ... ‘My spirit was embittered, I was senseless and confused YET YOU ARE ALWAYS WITH ME, you hold me by my right hand ... you will guide me and counsel me' ... I will guide you and counsel you, Jill.

And in his revelation of how great his God is, the Psalmist is overwhelmed with praise ... ‘whom do I have but you, oh God ... The earth has nothing I desire, my flesh and heart may fail [I may feel weak and helpless and even broken hearted], but God is the strength and my portion forever. Those who are far, WILL perish ... He WILL destroy those who are unfaithful, but as for me, it is good to be near my God.

Pastor Rich’s point was what a shame if we were to just stop at verse 16 ... If we stop there, nothing DOES make sense ... Nothing is fair, nothing is right, nothing is just ... we ARE left confused and disoriented ... Frustrated and brokenhearted. But there is more to the story ... there IS more. My heart started beating faster as I received that Word to what I know God has been telling me, that there is more. For a while now, whenever I’m in His presence ... through worship or Bible study or even just a conversation with Him or about Him ... everything makes sense. But when I step out of that, I’m so confused, it’s truly almost instantaneous. When someone asks me how we’re doing and I have the opportunity to tell them how good God has been to us, it all makes sense ... but when I focus on what all we’ve lost and the chaos that surrounds me, my feet start slipping and the darkness closes in fast ...

‘All day long, I have been plagued and have been punished every morning, TILL I entered the sanctuary of God, THEN I understood ...’

This week has been crazy ... I met another young Mom who lost her husband a few years ago, I checked in on another friend who lost her husband last year, I learned that another friend just lost her husband in August (also to brain tumor), am praying for close friends who are seriously fighting the H1N1 virus, praying for another friend whose brother is in critical care with a 'mysterious infection', and went to calling hours to support friends who lost their daughter tragically this week. It would be so easy to give up ... to just stop at verse 16 and close the book ... and you know that satan tries all that he can to get us to do just that and say ‘I don’t get it, God’, or maybe if he can just get us twirling in disorientation with ‘surely you take care of your people, don’t you ... surely you can’t let this happen any more’ ... Or frustrated with anger, ‘when will the wicked no longer succeed?! When God?!? Do you even care?!’

OF COURSE satan doesn’t want us to read verses 17-24 ... he doesn’t want tragedy to lead us into the sanctuary of God, that's just crazy ... he can’t risk us understanding his ‘final destiny’ ... he knows it, but he certainly doesn’t want to be reminded of it ... for if we would keep reading, we would surely know that the earth has nothing that we desire, that God is all that we need, that this world offers us nothing but what makes our heart and flesh fail ... If we were to keep reading, we would learn that God is the strength of our heart, or as The Message says it ‘You're all I want in heaven! You're all I want on earth! When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, God is rock-firm and faithful. Look! Those who left you are falling apart! Deserters, they'll never be heard from again. But I'm in the very presence of God— oh, how refreshing it is! I've made Lord God my home. God, I'm telling the world what you do!’

‘But when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.’

I guess that’s where I’m at right now ... longing for ‘The Perfect’ to come ... for the partial to be done away ... to be face-to-face and to know fully, as well as I know He knows me ... Can you imagine? For His presence to be enough, our portion forever ...

Isn’t it good to know, though, that as we continue to wait ... in this crazy world ... isn’t it good to know it doesn’t stop at verse 16. Friends, don’t stop at verse 16 ... read on ... the best is yet to come ...

It is good to be near my God.


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