From Anger to "Listening"

Those of you who know me, know I stutter. And the medication I’m taking for Parkinson’s seems to exacerbate the stutter. Yet, I’m still called on to speak publically, so I thought I needed some fresh stutter jokes. Here’s one. Do you like it?

When I was a kid, one Christmas I sat on Santa’s lap. He asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I said, “A ska – sk.a – ska- ska-skateboard. I awoke Christmas morning to find five skateboards under the tree.
Have you any others I could swipe?

I’m tired of posting “anger.” Let’s take a break. Something I’ve been studying lately is the word “listen,” prompted by John Eldredge’s book, “Walking With God.” John’s premise is that God wants to speak to us personally. So he logged a year’s experience of listening to God and compiled it into the book.

The back of the book jacket reads: “We have a lot to sort through on any given day. Am I in the right place? The right relationships? How am I going to come up with enough money to do the things I want to do? Will I have enough money? And what about love – is this the one? Am I in the right church? Should I even go to church? What is God doing in my life? All day long we are making choices. It adds up to an enormous amount of decisions in a lifetime. How do we know what to do?

“We have two options. We can trudge through on our own, doing our best to figure it all out. Or, we can walk with God. As in, learn to hear his voice. Really. We can live life with God. He offers to speak to use and guide us….”

My personal opinion is that John goes a little extreme. Asking God what color of socks he should wear that day. Well, almost. Enough said about the book. Get it but watch for the extremes.

Back to my study. First I word-searched on http://www.biblepathway.com/ and found the word “listen” mentioned 584 times in the NLT. The word “hear” is listed 1480 times. A grand total of 2064 references. Contrast this to the words “speak” and “talk: 590 times. The old adage rings true, “you have two ears and one tongue. Act accordingly.”

I then copied a significant amount of the”listen scriptures” to get a catergorical feel. Did a google search and now am beginning to put something together. I’ll share it with you in the coming posts.

But first a couple questions for you. Does God speak to you? If so, how? If you’ve developed a listening ear to God, how did you do that? What was the process? I’d appreciate and covet your comments.