He is always speaking, but we’re not always listening

After 50 years of learning to listen to God’s voice, I have found that He is always speaking, but we’re not always listening. There is nothing more important than learning to hear God’s voice, because one word from Him will change your life forever!

Even Jesus’ disciples did not always hear Him correctly or recognize His voice. When Jesus joined two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection, and He began talking to them, they didn’t recognize Him even though they had walked, talked and eaten meals with Him for the past three years (see Luke 24:13-32). Perhaps they were so immersed in the details of the dark events of the past few days that they couldn’t hear clearly. I imagine there was a good chance they did not see Jesus because they simply did not expect to see Him. He appeared to them in an unfamiliar form, at an unexpected time, and their ears and eyes remained closed.

Before we criticize these disciples, we must ask ourselves, “How often do we experience the same loss of hearing today?” Could it be that the Lord sometimes speaks to us in ways that are unfamiliar to us, and we don’t recognize His voice? We lament that we can’t hear Him speak, but in reality, He has been speaking all along. Could it be that our understanding of hearing His voice is limited? Maybe we have preconceived ideas of how God will or will not communicate with us, and they limit us in hearing His voice. Let’s open our hearts to Him today with a fresh expectation that we will hear Him speak more clearly than ever before.