Listening to God

Once there was a man who dared God to speak.

            Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God.

                        And I will follow.

            Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God.

                        And I will fight.

            Still the waves like you did on Galilee, God.

                        And I will listen.

And so the man sat by a bush, near a wall, close to the sea

            and waited for God to speak.

And God hear the man, so God answered.

He sent fire, not for a bush, but for a church.

            He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.

                        He stilled a storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.

And God waited for the man to respond.

And He waited…

            And He waited…

                        And waited.

But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts;       

            bricks and not lives, seas and not souls,

                        he decided that God had done nothing.

Finally he looked to God and asked, Have you lost your power?

And God looked at him and said, Have you lost your hearing?

The first time I ever read this story, I was left speechless. I don't know about you, but I have been guilty of looking at bushes, seas, and stones only to be disappointed and convinced that God didn't hear or answer me. I used to think that if I wasn't hearing Him, He just must not be answering. "If God was going to move in my life, wouldn't He move in big ways?"

           God does not always answer us the way we want Him to or think He will. Sometimes His answers don't make sense to us, sometimes they go unnoticed, and oftentimes they don't come when we think that they should, but He always answers us. Isaiah 55:9 says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." The problem isn't that God doesn't hear us or that He doesn't answer us. The problem is that we don't know how to look or listen. I feel like we have underestimated the power God holds and simplified the ways in which He can reveal Himself to us. We take everything for face value and do not look deeper to see the meaning beneath. 

            I think that we need to begin to see God in the beauty of everyday life. Do we see and hear God in the everyday miracles? Do we hear His voice or see His work in the beauty of simple things or the small acts of kindness? If we don’t, we should. The pastor at my church gave an amazing sermon on this topic fairly recently. He said, "The whole world is a love letter from God." He stressed the importance of feeling God's presence and hearing His words through the gifts, the people, and the world that He has given to us. God works in amazing ways; He doesn’t necessarily always give us a verbal response or a physical embrace. If you don’t think you hear or see God in your life, merely look around. All of your blessings, the sunshine, the rain, a smile, a friend, a bible verse, a song, anything; you can hear God if you listen and you will see Him if you look. If we turn our focus away from bushes, bricks, and seas, maybe we will see God in the miracles of hearts, lives, and souls. If we learn how to look and listen, we will come to recognize the comfort that is in our faithful Savior and that His comfort is not necessarily revealed to us how we expect it should be.   

            Matthew 13: 16 – “But blessed are your eyes, because they see and your ears, because they hear.”