Who's Listening?

Today just before I woke up I had a dream. It was a dream I had the other day as well so I guess you could call it a reoccurring dream. It wasn’t terrifying or even dramatic but as I woke up this morning I wondered if I was suppose to use it as an illustration. Both times I was with a dog and it was not on a leash. Maybe it had to do with all the walks I have gone on in the park where I have seen dogs that were with their master but were not on a leash. This time I was in a parking lot and was trying to get the dog to come to me because it was about to get hit by a bus. I had remembered that the last time I called a dog someone had told me I was suppose to direct it in the opposite way that I wanted it to go and that it would go the direction I really wanted it to. Remember, the last time was a dream too. In my dream I was perplexed because I knew that if I directed it in the opposite direction and it obeyed me, it would run directly in front of the bus. If I commanded it to come to me and it went in the opposite direction it would still run in front of the bus. What I decided to do was to just start running and hope the dog would follow me and yes, the dream had a happy ending, the dog was not hit by the bus. The first thing I did when I started to look at what God wanted me to write today was to look at the next characteristic of God that I had written down. To my amazement it was from Nehemiah 9:9 “You saw the suffering of our forefathers in Egypt, you heard their cries at the Red Sea.” I had written down that
God is a listener. The Israelites groaned long before they were at the Red Sea. If you look in Genesis 4:23 you will find the Israelites groaning to God about their slavery. Verse 24 and 25 tells us, “God heard the groanings and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”
The Psalms are full of verses where David said that he cried to the Lord and He heard his cries and there are verses such as Psalms 38:12 “Hear my prayer, O Lord, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, as all my fathers were.” Do you ever feel that way, have you cried out for the Lord to help you and you felt like a stranger to God? Read on in Psalms 40:1 “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.” Amy Grant sings a song about God hearing our cries and that sometimes it is better than a hallelujah. It is a song of reminder that God does hear our cries and wants us to come to Him. One thing we as humans so often forget though is that He wants us to come to Him in the good times as well as the bad.
As a teacher and a principal I have had to make some calls to parents that weren’t easy or pleasant to make. No one ever wants to hear negative things about their child. Even though they may know that their child has issues they generally don’t like being told that by someone else. I always found that if I kept in continual contact with a parent they would hear not just the bad but would hear of the milestones their child had made and they could more easily accept the setbacks that sometimes came their way. Do you think God could possibly be the same way? If we forget to thank Him during the good times but only come to Him in times of trials it could get to be a little frustrating.
Have you ever had something important to say and didn’t think anyone was listening? I would imagine that God is the same way. We have His words right in front of us. We cry out to Him to listen to our cries but we forget that it is a two way conversation and we need to be doing some listening as well. As I searched scripture this morning this verse popped up on my I-pad and stared me in the face, Proverbs 8:33-36 “Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not ignore it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord. But whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death.” Proverbs 8:33 -36. You see, we all have a chose to make. We can seek Him and find Him and when we do we have found life in Him. We can be like the dog in my dream and not listen to what is being commanded, we can go the opposite direction or we can simply listen and follow. If it is good for the dog to follow the commands of his master it is so much better for me to follow the commands of my Master and have life. May God bless you as you listen, be assured He hears your cries. Seek Him now with your whole heart and you will find Him.
Seeking Him with all my heart,
Sheila