by Joe Talhelm
"You just don't listen hard enough", so my mom told me time and time again as I was growing up.
I guess my attention span wasn't the best it could have been when I was a kid, but now - I really
don't have that excuse. We all have to listen to someone. Boss, husband, wife, dad, mom, others
in authority. Most of the time we don't want to listen to someone else, especially if they are
telling us to do something! We may listen, but not hard enough to grasp what is being said, and
that's when we get ourselves into trouble.
God wants us to listen to Him. He tries to speak to us through other individuals or through incidents in our lives that seem to shake us or even break us. It might take a near accident or even a death in our family before we realize that God is trying to speak to us. He wants to tell us something very important - that He loves us. He wants to tell us that He cares for us and that even in the loneliest of times, He is there just when we need Him. He says in His Word "I will never leave you nor forsake you" and if we will just listen to Him and all that He has to say to us in the Bible, we will find out many great things. We will find out that He made us in His own image (and God doesn't make junk!). We will find out that God loved us so much that He gave to the world His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be a friend to everyone who needs one. And He wants us to know that we are very special in His eyes - no matter what we think of ourselves. If we will just listen to Him, we can find out that He feels our hurts, our pains, our loneliness, our shame and even our deepest anguishes.
Listen..........Is that God whispering in our ear? Is that Him speaking peace to our hearts? Just pause for a moment and listen. You will be surprised what He might have to say to you! So, just listen.