Hearing His Voice #316

My ears you have opened.

Psalm 40:6, NIV

In all our searching and listening for God’s voice, we need to remember one crucial fact: It’s ultimately up to Him to communicate in ways we can understand. There are a number of things we can do to position ourselves to hear, and we can commit to being responsive to whatever God says, but if He doesn’t open our ears, we won’t hear. For those of us who like to “make things happen,” this can be a frustrating process. We want to storm the gates of heaven and have God honor our boldness—an approach that is endorsed and encouraged in several places in Scripture. But even then, the gates of heaven don’t open unless God opens them. Our hearing is in His hands.

We can take comfort in that. After all, God is even more interested in our hearing Him than we are. The Shepherd has invested quite a bit in His sheep, and He isn’t about to ignore us now. We may go through dry times when we think He’s silent, but even in those times, we are very often hearing Him well and simply mistrusting what we hear. In the words of the hymnist Frederick William Faber, “There is hardly ever a complete silence in our soul. God is whispering to us well-nigh incessantly.” The problem usually is not that God is silent; it’s that we aren’t hearing well. We need to listen, but we also need to ask: “Lord, open my ears.”

That’s a good prayer to pray daily—even several times a day. There’s no reason we can’t hear as the early Christians heard and know the presence of the Spirit as they did in the outpourings of Pentecost and afterward. In all our praying for revival, this is a good place to start. Those who hear His voice can’t help but be changed. Open and willing ears are the key.

Lord, open my ears. Again and again. I’ll pray it constantly, relentlessly, until I’m hearing You well. You are the master of my hearing, and I trust You to speak in ways I can perceive and understand.