Are You Listening?

What if today God decided to reveal the next “big” step in your life?  Would you recognize His voice?  Would you question it?  There are a lot of voices to contend with in our life on a regular basis — our own, the enemy, our peers, our family, the media, society, and so forth.   If we can’t distinguish God’s voice amid the incessant chatter of our day to day life then what good is His guidance?

I love that God is the Author of my story because He makes it interesting, but interesting does not always translate into something I want to do.  His requests often come with some degree of sacrifice and personal discomfort.  God needs to know we are listening.

I imagine God has a lot to do.  He does not want to repeat Himself or be made to bear objections at each request.  He wants us to be so attuned to His voice that we respond in immediate obedience to whatever task He gives us.  We spend so much time trying to figure out whether or not we can trust God, but can He trust us?  Can God trust us to respond in obedience regardless of the perceived importance of the task?

God wants to ensure we know His voice.  Familiarity breeds trust and the only way to trust that we are hearing from God is to spend time seeking His voice.  Time in the presence of God enables us to respond in confident obedience.  God wants to make sure that when He does decide to reveal the “big” stuff that we know it’s Him.

“Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God.  But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.” John 8:47 (NLT)

Today strive to listen for God in everything. Maintain a constant dialogue with God.  God may be waiting for you to practice obedience in a small task.  That task may seem completely irrelevant to what you’re waiting to hear from God about that one command might be a “mic-check …1 2 1 2!”  just to see if you’re listening and can hear Him.  Are you listening?

Ashley Ivery is a single mother of two brilliant children, Aiden and Devyn, with an overwhelming desire to empower women and help them to realize the importance of a relationship with God.  Through her writing she hopes to encourage women to claim their strength and value in Christ.  Ashley serves as the Residential Listing Partner for Team Harris Real Estate.  She graduated from Fayetteville State University in 2012 with a BS in Psychology.  Her motto is:  "Be Authentic.  Live Honestly.  Dispel Light."