Read And Listen

Read and Listen

The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8

Author and speaker Evelyn Christenson helped me to learn a wonderful way to listen to God during my times in the Bible. When she set out to earnestly seek the Lord, he taught her to begin reading a passage of Scripture and keep reading until his Spirit stopped her. Then she would stop right there (not rushing to get a certain number of chapters finished) to pray about what that passage said. She asked God to be her Teacher and depended on the Holy Spirit to operate in her and to give her understanding. Then she listened for what God said to her about the verses and analyzed what his reason might be for stopping her at that particular place. That would help her discover the need and determine what her part was, what step of obedience she was to take.

Sometimes the passage was a word of correction for a wrong attitude. Sometimes it brought her comfort or reminded her of God’s love. Often there was specific direction for a certain situation or for a retreat she was going to do. The night before Evelyn was to have major surgery, she was reading in Romans, and God stopped her at Romans 12:1. As she pondered that verse, she realized that she had given God her soul, her mind, and her emotions but never her body! As a result, she surrendered her whole physical body so that God might be in charge of everything that concerned her in that surgery and throughout her life.

Because Evelyn has paid close attention to the Bible in this way, day by day, year by year, and precept on precept, God in his grace has never left her wandering in the dark. He has always provided just the right amount of light for the next step. He has given her wisdom that she has passed on in her books and messages. And as she has obeyed the Lord’s instructions, he has changed her into the woman he wanted her to be—a woman who has inspired millions of women in the United States and around the world and has imparted a powerful vision for what happens when women pray. —CHERI

Thank you for the Bible, which gives me light and strength. Be my Teacher, Spirit of Christ, as I give attention to your Word. May it transform me day by day.

God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. He spoke a book and lives in his spoken words, constantly speaking his words and causing the power of them to persist across the years.

—A. W. TOZER (1897–1963), AMERICAN PASTOR, PREACHER, AND AUTHOR