It takes discipline to listen with intention and focus, but are there benefits in doing so? Why do we so easily lose our focus?
Video Transcript
Hi there and welcome back to Daily Bible Promises with a Twist. And today, as always, we’re going to be reading from these Bible promise cards. And today, it’s Psalm 85:8. “I will listen to what God the Lord says. He promises peace to his people.”
And we’re going to read the complete verse now, using the New Living Translation so that’s Psalm 85:8, “I will listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying. For he speaks peace to his faithful people but let them not return to their foolish ways.”
There’s a certain intentionality when it comes to listening to the voice of the Lord. And I like the word CAREFULLY that the New Living Translation attaches to the word listen. “I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying.”
When I record these daily Bible promises, I shut off all the sounds in my apartment; my television, my computer, everything else except for a couple of appliances, my refrigerator and my air purifier. And as I’m talking to you right now, because the rest of my apartment is quiet, I can hear the fan of my air purifier going on in the background. However, 95% of the time I never hear it because it’s nothing but white noise now and all the other sounds of my apartment take precedence over the sound of that fan.
To listen for the voice of the Lord it requires intentionality on our part. Our world is full of noise, both internally and externally. We have our computers on, we’re listening to music, people are talking in the background – those are just external noises! And then our internal noises clamor for our attention; our cares. our concerns, the burdens that we might be carrying. the things that we need to do on our to-do lists, all these things race around in our mind at any given time.
So to listen carefully to the Lord requires a bit of discipline and effort on our part but the rewards are great as it says further in verse 8. “He speaks peace to his faithful people.”
There was a commercial in the 1990s for a cell phone company down in the United States where their catchphrase was, ‘Can you hear me now?’ I believe that God is constantly speaking to His people but are we really listening with the intention to hear what He has to say?
There’s a great benefit if we do, because He’s speaking peace to us. Even if He’s speaking words of correction or conviction, even if he’s encouraging us to step past the chicken line, so to speak, and to take some risks for Him, underneath all those things is an undercurrent that carries us and that is His peace. If we want His peace we need to listen to Him. Once we hear His words of peace over us, we have to keep that peace.
The next time you’re tempted to turn around and head back to the hills to your foolish ways, ask yourself a question. Where along the line did you lose your peace? What happened that caused you to place the voice of something else on a higher priority in your life than the voice of the Lord?
Remember what that peace felt like and strive to listen to hear His voice once again.
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©2018 Katherine Walden
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