Dave’s Monday Blast – March 23, 2015
James 1:19-27 admonishes us to be “Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger…so that we can be ‘doers of the word…not merely hearers'”. Do you consider yourself to be a good listener, a doer of the word? In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God: “Before refrigerators, people used ice houses to preserve their food. Ice houses had thick walls, no windows and a tightly fitted door. In the winter, when streams and lakes were frozen large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the ice houses and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.
One man lost a valuable watch while working in an ice house. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the ice house during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. ‘I closed the door’, the boy replied, ‘laid down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking’.”
Hey men…often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough and quiet enough to hear. Yes, Jesus assures us that our heavenly Father always listens to us, but do we really listen to God? Do we follow the instructions of Psalm 46, “Be still, and KNOW that I am God?”
This week…I recommend INTENTIONALLY spending some quality time with the Lord. But spend much of that time just prayerfully listening.
