God’s Talking, but Are You Listening? by MIKEL FRENCH for Charisma Mag
Are you listening?
Thanks to billions of voices across many social platforms trying to get our attention, the background noise in our lives can be deafening and overwhelming. In the midst of the clamor, I must ask, is anyone doing any listening? Are you?
Doug Larson said, “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.” This is a spiritual principle. Every spiritual leader’s greatest gift is his or her ability to listen. I would even say one of the most overlooked gifts of the Holy Spirit is the power to listen, both to those we commune with here on earth and to God.
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God is speaking to us all the time. God speaks to us through His Word; God speaks to us through His Spirit; and at times God speaks to us through other believers by the Holy Spirit. It is up to us as believers, however, to listen if we are to hear. When you ask people, “Does someone have a word from God?” the question that must be asked instead is, “Is anyone really listening to God?”
John 16:12–14 casts away any doubt that our Creator is communicating with us:
I have yet many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But He will speakwhatever He hears, and He will tell you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will receive from Me and will declare it to you (emphasis added).
The same disciple who recorded these words from Jesus penned the book of Revelation, where we see the awesome, beautiful love story between Christ and the church. There He is portrayed as the groom who wars for us, His bride. Chapter 1 reveals Him as this groom whose “eyes were like a flame of fire” (v. 1:14b), full of passion for His beloved. Over and over as He speaks to the church, He implores, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7a, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 21, emphasis added).
