New Feature: Since this is a blog based on daily readings from a reading guide and since I don’t always post my writings on the days that align with the reading guide I will begin including the date and reference of  the reading on which I am basing my thoughts. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Nov. 13  John 11

 

It’s early. Really early. Not, “I didn’t sleep all night because I am worried,” early. More like, “I can’t believe it but I am glad I am up.” early.” It’s quiet.

I’m listening. Rain falling, running down the gutters. Furnace. Wind. Creaking house. Coffee brewing. Sounds of my favorite part of the day. Some days it is the sounds of birds singing or squirrels running on the roof or dogs barking. So natural; normal. A lot of good things happen early. One of the regrets of my life is that I may have wasted or missed too many “earlys”. You know the routine, stay up late, in my case because I don’t want to miss something at night, then get up late and have to throw yourself into the demands of the day. Mornings like that rob me of one of my most cherished disciplines. Listening. Our lives are full of noise but a lack of listening. Our culture is addicted to noise. Most of it man made and artificial.  We even have a phrase that describes our loathing of silence. We call it “dead air.” Is the air really “dead” or just my ability to hear? I am learning to listen and discovering the sounds of life everywhere. I need to learn to listen because I am a talker by nature. I want to talk. Really, I want to tell more often than talk. Talking implies listening, telling implies talking without listening. One of the great surprises and learnings that has occurred in my life since I made the decision to read God’s word everyday is that I have learned to listen and learned to love to listen. I used to read with the idea of learning something I could tell others. I wasn’t listening I was hunting. I have, to the best of my ability, offered that need to God and now my prayer daily before I read is, “Lord, please speak to my heart and my spirit. Please let me hear what you are saying. Whether I ever speak again is irrelevant. I want to hear your voice, daily.” In fact one of the creedal thoughts of my spiritual life is that it is more important that I hear from God than it is that He hear from me. All of this culminated for me today as I was reading John 11. I am discovering that the book of John has this underlying theme of “listening and hearing”. I won’t give all the details here, but think about that the next time you read in John. Two of the verses that support this thought you will recognize.

Jesus said, “A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.”

“I have other sheep. They too will listen to my voice…”

There are many others. I hope you find them.

Listening and hearing are critical to knowing and living for and following God.

The story of Lazarus illustrates these thoughts well I think. Listen to all the noise in John 11. Martha, Mary, friends, weeping, questioning, doubting, second guessing, grumbling. How distracting. Noise doesn’t always have to be loud just distracting to fulfill its purpose. But in the midst of all the noise Jesus was listening. And he was conversing with His father. See verse 41. And because he was listening he knew what God’s will was in this setting. He was able to speak confidently because he had heard clearly. He spoke out of the flow of his conversation with his father, God. Because he had heard clearly, what he spoke transformed a life and a family and a community. Lazarus heard! A dead man, a family, a community came to life; all because someone listened.

And what he spoke wasn’t wordy or complicated, just powerful and life giving.

I have had this happen in my life on occasion. Most recently it happened early one morning when I was asking God what to do about something that really troubled me. I had just returned from Ghana, West Africa. I was there visiting a pastor friend who also is a doctor and runs a hospital and a school. I was walking through his compound one day and noticed that all of his buildings were either unfinished or in need of repair. What troubled me was that I knew our church was preparing to build new multimillion dollar worship center. I couldn’t reconcile in my spirit how we could do this for ourselves without doing something for our friends in Ghana. So I was up early one morning conversing with God, sharing my discontent about this and asking him what to do. I don’t know what I expected but what I heard was definitely not it. I believe I heard the spirit say to me, “Ask the leadership to give 10% of all the new building funds for missional projects. In the case of Lazarus who had been dead four days, I don’t know what Martha expected Jesus to say but it probably wasn’t, “Remove the stone.” There is usually only one small thing between us and what God wants to do; our obedience to what he speaks. It all starts with listening and that starts early. Then obedience grows as we practice listening and responding.

In my case I felt confident about what I had heard so I spoke and asked the leadership to designate 10% of the new building funds to missional projects. They heard and agreed. I am excited about the life and transformation that will result from this obedience.

The story of Lazarus makes me want to be a better listener. The Father has so much to say.

 

“Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.”

Mother Theresa

 

Just a thought.

Gotta go. I hear the refrigerator running and I have go catch it.

Sorry!