Listen, God is Always Speaking

I love the NIV translation of John 10:27 because it uses the word “listen” in place of hear. The word “hear” implies being aware of a sound, but “listen” implies that attention is given to the sound. The Lord gave me an illustration once. Say you’re a child in your bedroom and outside your bedroom door you can hear two peop

le talking. One voice is unfamiliar and the other is the voice of your father. The unfamiliar voice you can hear, but you’re attention is toward the voice of your father. You are drawn to your father’s voice because you have spent time with him. His voice to you is more than just a sound; it represents counsel, love, and wisdom.

God desires that we relate to His voice in the same way we would our earthly father. Sometimes His voice can be very subtle and easily missed. Sometimes it could mean a matter of life and death. One morning I was on my way to work and I was about to take the direct, reasonable way into work but the Lord told me to take the longer way into work through town. Once I got into work someone asked me if I had taken the shortcut into work and I said, “no.” He continued to tell me that there were two horses running down the middle of the road. Ten minutes later my ambulance pager went off because one of the horses met their fate by being hit by a SUV. If I had not “listened” to that subtle voice I could have been seriously hurt or killed in my Geo Metro. My advice is don’t just hear God’s voice, “listen.”