Hearing His Voice #22

I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost.

Habakkuk 2:1

Sometimes people are startled by God’s voice. They haven’t really been listening for Him, but He steps into their lives anyway with some vital information or direction. That’s what He did with Moses, who was hardly looking for a new direction from God when he encountered the burning bush. That’s what God did with Samuel, who thought that Eli the priest was calling to him in the middle of the night; he had to be told it was God. And that’s what God did with Mary, who may have sought God’s will diligently but would never have expected a visit from an angel and an announcement about her beautiful, scandalous pregnancy. God will surprise us when He is about to do something major in His overall plan and wants to use us as part of it. But that isn’t the usual way of hearing Him.

No, we will rarely be aware of His voice if we go through life thinking, If God wants to speak to me, He has my number. He much more readily speaks to those who are actively listening—who, like Habakkuk, have stationed themselves on the wall and are waiting to hear what God says. This kind of attentiveness requires faith and patience, but eventually it will be rewarded. The more we listen, the more we hear. The more we practice hearing, the more we learn to recognize which voice is God’s. Sure, practice involves failure—we will misunderstand some things as we learn—and there will be times when our attentiveness tunes us in to all kinds of voices, not just God’s. But over time, we learn to recognize His voice out of all the others.

Whatever it takes, we need to position ourselves like satellite receivers waiting for a signal from the spiritual realm. We need to ask God to speak, and then we need to listen for His voice. He will develop our ears to hear.

Lord, I’m listening. Please speak, and please help me to recognize Your voice. Speak to the questions I’ve put before You. Give me the pleasure of hearing Your voice clearly.