Three Ways to Hear God Today

It's crazy, but I wait all day like Elijah on the mountain, wait for the loud and the blazing, the flash and fireball.

The dog barks on the front porch. Shalom laughs at her daddy's silly joke, rubs his nose with hers, repeats that same funny line in giggles all day. I lose a needed piece of mail, hunt for it like a hound. The house looks like it.

Malakai comes in from the barn, shoulders a shudder of sobs, and when I ask him what's wrong, he chokes out, "I am." Oh I know, son of mine with skin like mine, I know. I stroke his hair. I read books outloud for hours and they smile, plea always for one page more.

All afternoon the snow falls and Hope plays scales, hymns, a lonely Christmas carol or two. Joshua crochets, following a real, bonafide pattern this time --- a first! I only have to ask four times for the the dominoes to be picked up off the living room floor.

For hours after dark, the lights from the shop stretch shadows across the yard, Caleb there working with wood. I ring the bell for him to come in across blue winter white.

The stubble-cheeked man with the rough hands, he and I, we kiss long at the door when he comes in for dinner. The orchid blooms petals of snow in January.

When did I miss comets?






I do remember Malakai saying after breakfast, his head cocked near the window, "Shhhh.... if you're very quiet and really listen, you can hear birds......"

In the morning, I leave a Bible open on the shelf over the sink. All day, every dish, every turn of the tap, I read Words, run water and wash my heart.

The very real presence of God is in these Words. I go to very God when I go to His Word. King and Sovereign, and here.

He is The Word and I can open that Word and sit and listen to voice of God. The very Word of God, in my very own hands -- how can this be? --- and I can hold it, touch it, read it! The Word is alive, and His Words, careful precision of a surgeon's scalpel, tenderly cut the layers away, cut it back to the place "where the soul and the spirit are joined." (Hebrews 4:12)

I try to imagine this place "where the soul and the spirit are joined." Only the Word can touch the sinew that holds spirit and soul together. Only the Word can reach to that holy place within... to those ethereal organs I know not where.

The Living Word cannot be bound by the binding. He breathes and He speaks everywhere for He is Word and He cannot be silenced and if I'm quiet and I listen, I hear Him in the whisper of candle flame, thunder of heartbeat held close, quiet quake of last leaf in winter orchard before it falls to the earth.

When I slow... still...pay attention... I can even hear Him in the child tears, the man kiss, the boy work --- for from Him and to Him and through Him are all things.

I quiet. He is in the gentle murmur of now. Comets fall.

He lives and I listen.







Three Ways to Hear God Today:

1. Slow Down. Still.

2. Pay Attention.

3. Listen to the Word. He speaks in lines and in life.

"Our lives are meant to be listened to,
because it is God who is speaking
into and out of and through the symphony of the years,
and the masterpiece of a lifetime."

~Michael Card

Related from the archives: Easy Listening

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Photos: orchid in my room, gift from Opa Voskamp
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