My child, listen to what I say,
and treasure my commands.
Tune your ears to wisdom,
and concentrate on understanding.
Cry out for insight,
and ask for understanding.
Search for them as you would for silver;
seek them like hidden treasures.
Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord,
and you will gain knowledge of God.
Proverbs 2:1-5 (NLT)
We had the pleasure of having my father-in-law live with us for a while. And even though it was our pleasure, it was not without its challenges. One of those challenges was a few years down the road when he would get his time mixed up. He would wake up in the middle of the night or early, early in the morning, get dressed and go downstairs expecting everyone to be up.
Now, I get up early so I can spend some uninterrupted time with God. I need this to start my day on the right footing. And Baba needed to sleep. It was important for his health. The first time Baba showed up downstairs way too early, I was taken by surprise. But as this habit continued, I learned to listen for him.
I listened for every creek of the floor, every slipper drop or the door to his room opening. I did this as I went through my morning routine being acutely aware of what he was doing all the time.
Baba has since gone to be with Jesus but the other day it occurred to me that if I could get used to listening for Baba so closely, what was preventing me from listening for Jesus so closely? Could it be that we hear what we get accustomed to hearing? Take mothers for example, they can hear their child doing something from rooms away (or not hear them which is a sure indicator that something is amiss.)
Maybe when we say "I can't hear God" it is because we are not tuning our hearing to him. Could it be that we don't hear him because we aren't really listening for him and the other noises in our lives are getting it the way? What would happen if we were constantly listening for the Voice or the lack thereof? Wouldn't we get so used to hearing it that we knew the sound immediately? What a difference that would make in our world....