Speak Lord, I’m Listening
When Samuel was a small boy, he was awakened in the night by a voice he thought was his mentor’s, the priest Eli. It turned out to be God speaking to him. This was the first of many occasions Samuel was able to not only hear God speak to him, but also to respond back. What an amazing thing to be able to dialog with God Himself!
Though God does speak and desires to communicate with us, many have difficulty in hearing or discerning what He is saying. Our mind is so often distracted and cluttered by so many worries and concerns, that when we want to hear what God has to say, all we just get is the buzz of our own thoughts. Our mind is important in the experience of hearing God, but only as an interpreter. God speaks to us in our inner man or spirit, then the mind interprets what He is saying. Some wish God would just speak audibly or through some sign in the sky, thinking that this would make things so much easier, but this has happened in the past and still many didn’t get the message. An example of this is in the Gospel of John where God spoke audibly about His Son, and those with Jesus thought it was just thunder or some angel. The same thing happened to those with Saul on the road to Damascus. God speaking audibly is no guarantee that we will hear correctly.
Hearing God is through revelation, not through natural intelligence. Revelation is when the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our understanding. The two disciples that were talking to the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize it was Jesus talking to them until their eyes were opened. Jesus explained the Scriptures about Himself, (which is the same Greek word used in I Cor. 12.30 for interpretation of tongues), their hearts were moved and then revelation came.
Instead of hardening our hearts toward God, because of our stubbornness and sin, let us prepare our hearts to hear Him. Offer yourself to Him as a child and ask Him to open the eyes of your understanding.
Scriptures to meditate on: I Samuel 3; Ephesians 1.17-18; Hebrews 1.1; John 12.28; Luke 24.13-35.