Can you hear me now?

Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD!  O Lord, hear my voice!  Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!  Psalm 130. 1-2

God is listening.  It is not a matter of us waving our hands or shouting loud enough to get His attention, “Can you hear me now?”

I can remember my grandmother saying, “You don’t have to raise your voice.  I’m right here.”

Particularly in crisis, we suddenly want to hear from God.  We want to hear His voice now.  “Generally it is much more important to cultivate the quiet, inward space of a constant listening than to always be approaching God for specific direction,” notes Dallas Willard in his book Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God.

After all, praying is a conversation with God, not based on words draped in some kind of sacred vestments.  Praying is the lifeblood of our relationship. Not demanding God, “Talk to me!!”  He has been.  We are the ones who have muted Him, or blocked His voice with our noise-cancelling earphones.

Have we taken time to listen and pay attention to how God is speaking into our lives on a daily basis?  A loving relationship is based on talking together and listening.

We don’t have to wait until something goes wrong. It is not a matter of needing directions, but God nudging us in His direction.

Early 1900s speaker and pastor Frederick B. Meyer suggests, “Be still each day for a short time, sitting before God in meditation…”  That is how we learn not just to listen for God or to God, but how to pray.

Those quiet daily moments increase our desire to hear His voice, “when life is uneventful just as much as [we] want to hear it when [we] are facing trouble or big decisions…our failure to hear His voice when we want to is due to the fact that we do not in general want to hear it, that we want it only when we think we need it,” Meyer said.

In daily conversation, we come to know and recognize His voice.  Wherever we may be.   “…before the LORD, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there.”  Exodus 29. 42   Listen to Me.

The focus of our praying is to be with Him, talk, and walk with Him through the ordinary parts of life that are never so ordinary.  His voice always with us, not just on special occasions, or for disastrous events, or because we messed up or procrastinated and maybe God can get me out of this quagmire.  Our conversations with God are not limited to 911 calls in the middle of crisis.  He leads us by the still waters, He makes us lie down in green pastures, He restores our souls.

And He surprises us by His Presence.

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind.  And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.  And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.  And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.  And Elijah heard it…  1 Kings 19. 11-13

God speaks to us in ways we may not expect.

Can you hear Me now?