listening

by kristin friedery

Follow me on this...we live in a culture that is inundated with media. Music, cell phones, email, television, etc... Most of the time we can hardly hear each other talking over the din, let alone God. We are trained to live within our own world, walking the streets plugged into our iPods, heads bent over our cellphones texting each other nonstop. Don't get me wrong, technology has done a lot in bringing folks closer together. This blog has greatly improved my ability to dialogue with people across the country. But in our day-to-day how often is it that we take the time to look and listen to the world around us?

I spend a lot of time talking to my friends about living in our present reality. To me, this means engaging in a conversation without answering that text from your mom. Or maybe it means taking out both ear buds to hear what your friend just said, instead of just one. Or even, riding the bus without any sort of prop...just riding...and looking...and listening.

The theme of listening to God has been pervasive in my life recently. My church is in the process of listening and descerning God's vision for us. Now this seems more than appropriate for a church to do, but what about the rest of the time? It is important that we are always listening for God's voice because He loves us and wants what is best for His kingdom, which is ultimately best for us. Sometimes this pulls us into a place of peace and sometimes it takes us right outside of our comfort zone. But always it puts us closer to God. Listening to God's voice and direction in our lives aligns us with Him.

My pastor recently gave a sermon about listening to God and what it might look like. He spoke about how God uses the Holy Spirit part of the Triune to reach out to His people. My pastor used as an example the story of a man who has practiced and honed his gift of discernment (listening to God's Spirit speaking to him). This man has often found himself praying with strangers in parking lots at the urging of the Holy Spirit. Now, even this man would say that he has a particular gift that God has given to him and has developed in him, but doesn't the Spirit move in all of us?

The sermon started me thinking about whether or not I listen to God's voice in my every day life. I can't say that I have ever asked a stranger how they were doing at the prompting of the Spirit. So I decided to do an experiment and see what God says to me during the day. I will admit, I did not spend the day in conversations with people I just met, but I did realize how much of my time I spend NOT listening to God.

Jesus spent a lot of His ministry walking among the people. He was available for conversations, for teaching and touching lives. Sometimes it exhausted Him and He took a retreat to talk to the Father. But most of the time, Jesus engaged the people who were around Him.
We are called to live our lives like Christ. Relational ministry means being available for relationships. Maybe, like the guy in my pastor's sermon, this means being spurred by the Holy Spirit to ask that woman in line ahead of you how her day is going. Maybe it just means putting down the cellphone until the car ride is over so you can talk to the friend sitting next to you.