Happy Weekend lovelies,
I hope your week was great and pleasant π€.
How do you listen actively?
Do you pray and rush off to other things without waiting for
a response from the person you had a conversation with
(God)?
As Christians some of us still battle with listening actively to
God and as long as growth is involved we need to learn to
listen actively.
Read on...
Samuel was one of the greatest prophets in the Old
Testament. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that his first
assignment from God was to listen for God’s voice (see 1
Sam. 3:8-10). Samuel’s story shows us that there’s a
difference between active listening and passive hearing.
Hearing is something we do with our ears. If our hearing
is normal, we can’t help hearing sounds traveling within a
certain range. Listening, however, involves the mind.
Genuine listening is active. It involves putting the mind in
gear to hear everything that’s said as if it has meaning to
the listener.
That’s how God calls us to listen to Him: actively. He
wants our full and undivided attention. Let’s take a look at
the 10 key aspects of listening actively:
1. Attentively — To listen attentively means to attend or pay attention to each word. This is more than expectancy that God is speaking. It’s listening to each word for all the deeper meaning. When we truly listen attentively, we don’t miss a thing!
2. Quietly — The Lord says to us, “Cease striving and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). If we’re to hear from God, we must be quiet and let Him do the talking.
3. Patiently — The Lord doesn’t always tell us things all at once or instantly. Sometimes He speaks part of His message to us at one time, the rest at another. Other times we hear a message from Him only after we’ve been waiting for a season of time.
4. Reverently — A reverent heart stands in awe of God. What a privilege we have to hear from the God of the universe, the Creator of all that is. When we listen reverently, we listen with wonder—first that God would speak to us, and then that God would invite us to be part of His plans and purposes.
5. Dependently — You know how people say “Do it as if your life depended on it”? That’s the way we’re to listen because our lives depend upon our hearing. We must have no agenda other than God’s agenda for our lives.
6. Submissively — To listen submissively means that you listen with the full intent of obeying. If you plan to obey what you hear, you obviously take care to understand. Submitting to God’s Word is the only way you’ll ever find genuine meaning and purpose in life. Only as you submit to God can you hear from Him clearly and be in a position where the Lord can do for you all He’s promised to do.
7. Expectantly — If we’re going to listen actively, we must come before the Lord expectantly. We must anticipate with eagerness that He will speak to us.
8. Carefully — To listen carefully means to listen for the Holy Spirit to confirm that the word which we’re hearing is a genuine word from God. We must put everything we hear to that test. It must be in line with the written Word of God.
9. Openly — We must come to God with hearts and minds open to receive whatever He chooses to give us. To listen openly means to be willing to hear God correct us as well as comfort us, to hear Him convict us as well as assure us, and to hear Him chastise us as well as praise us.
10. Confidently — As we listen to God, we must be confident that we’ll hear what we need to hear. It may not always be what we want to hear, but we can trust God to tell us what we need to know so that we can make decisions and change certain things in our lives for our ultimate good.
All of these aspects of active listening are ways in which we truly have “ears to hear.” Jesus said repeatedly to His disciples, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matt. 11:15; 13:9; 43). May this always be true of each of us.
Thank you for reading, I hope after this we would put to practice the 10 keys and make sure you know the ways God speaks to you in order for you to be able to listen actively.
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#thegabbytable#
Very beautifully written, I wish I had known this long ago, it's been a real struggle, my walk with God hasn't been easy, but he's not giving me in me, neither will I give up on him ♥️
ReplyDeleteThat’s the Spirit dearπͺπ½, keep the faith going and God will strengthen you❤️. Thanks for reading
ReplyDelete