March 18 "Listen and Live"

OPENING PRAYER. . .Loving God, Creator of all that is, here I am--today in this place that you have given me, with all the senses you have given me. Help me to use them to experience you on a deeper level. May I experience you all around me, open me to know more of your ways and know that your goodness surrounds me. Thank you for this time to be with you and to just listen. Amen

LISTEN. . . "Incline your ear and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David." (Isaiah 55:3)
"The hearing ear and the seeing eye--the Lord has made them both. (Proverbs 20:12)

CONSIDER. . . Our sense of hearing is an important way for us to gain information. Listening for the important sounds in our lives--like the silent sound of God which the prophet Elijah knew when he heard it--becomes more difficult the noisier our world and our lives become.

SO WHAT. . . Listening to God and to others in our lives is hard work, because we need to set aside our own interior noise as well as the noise from outside of us.  There is constant noise today, TV blaring, radio in the car, iPhones plugged into our ears.  The noise surrounds us making it very difficult to seek that "still, small voice".

Take a few minutes and answer these questions. Who is there in your life that you need to spend more time listening to? One of the "voices" not heard much in our society is that of the poor. How can you hear the cry of the poor, whether homeless or hungry, to be better heard?  Can you  take time each day to turn off the noise to listen for God's voice?

PRAYER. . . Dear God, please help me to take time to listen better to you, to my own life and to others in my life. To really take what I hear to heart rather than just taking it in.  Help me especially when what I hear makes me uncomfortable or not what I expect to hear.  Amen.