The Discipline of Hearing

"Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops." Matthew 10:27

Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2 ). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."— pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.

This is today's devotional from My Utmost for His Highest. I read it pretty much every day and God has spoken to me through it several times because it is so thought-provoking. It really causes me to dig deeper into scripture to search for truth in what Chambers is saying, and it almost always applies to me -- if not at present, I find myself looking back and remembering what was written. Normally I wouldn't want to just slap up here someone else's thoughts because this is supposed to be the perspective that God reveals to me each day, but this devotional just shouted from the rooftops right into my ear today, and I couldn't hold back.

Going along with what I've talked about the past two days, I've always been one to spazz out when I can't hear God's voice. So I seek Godly counsel from friends or pastors or mentors. I mean, makes sense! Right?
But this is exactly what God has been laying on my heart this month. In the silence, be still and wait. Stop filling my head with what everyone else is saying, cause then I can't sit quietly and I can't hear God when He's ready to speak. There's nothing wrong with silence, darkness, a period of waiting. And that's where I am now. That doesn't mean I'm waiting and doing nothing, but I will wait and listen and worship, praise, and serve Him. (Ooooh like that song I like so much!) But I will calm down and wait for Him to teach me to listen. And then to speak.

That's one reason why I've been taking this month to focus on Him. Not on other people. Not on me. And not to continually ask Him what's next. He knows my heart desires Him, and when He is ready and He knows that I am willing, He will speak to me and call on me.

That's not to say that He doesn't speak to me daily, because clearly He does. I mean when I'm looking for decisions, answers, direction... the next step. Sometimes we feel like God isn't speaking to us specifically on those things we want and think we need to hear about immediately! At least that's how I feel sometimes. And right now I'm learning to slow down and discipline myself to listen to God now.