Listen To the Lead Of Our Good Shepherd

Good morning…

Last night I loved speaking with a group of women at the Cathedral of St. Philip. A few weeks back, the organizers and I discerned the topic for the evening: “Listening to God’s Lead.” We agreed that one of the biggest challenges in our jam-packed lives is listening to the lead of God.

As a group we considered together the difference between simply hearing and really listening. When we hear, our ears perceive sound, so hearing happens unconsciously. Listening, on the other hand, is something we diligently decide to do. As we concentrate on words and phrases, tone of voice and non-verbal cues, our brain processes meaning. Together, we admitted that we tend to be “hard of listening” rather than “hard of hearing.”

We took it a step further as we unpacked the Hebrew word for “listen.” “Shema” reveals the difference between the Hebrew focus on physical action and the Greek focus (upon which our Western culture is based) which stresses mental activity. “Shema” describes listening and its important effects: taking heed, being obedient, doing what is asked. I shared an example. Any parent who yells at children, “Were you listening?” when they ignored a clear instruction to pick up their rooms understands that listening is intended to result in action. Jesus, a Hebrew thinker, says: “Prove yourselves doers of the word [actively and continually obeying God’s precepts], and not merely listeners [who hear the word but fail to internalize its meaning]” (James 1:22a, AMP). Jesus and his Hebrew friends understood that we have not put what we have heard into our hearts until it transforms our lives as well.

Throughout the night we listened to various voices in the crowd read aloud Scriptures verses I had prepared, verses from Proverbs about listening, short Bible passages about the LORD leading, and then we looked closely at the way God yearns to lead us daily. “You led your people like a flock of sheep,” says Psalm 77:20. “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…he goes ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice,” adds John 10:2-4. “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries then close to his heart; he gently leads…” explains Isaiah 40:11. Revelation 7:17 paints a picture of divine partnership, “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Tender, gentle, personal is our LORD’s lead.

Ending our evening, twice we read aloud words from the 23rd Psalm, words written in the Message translation. We listened. We concentrated. We quietly allowed the LORD to transform our hearts.

GOD, my shepherd!
I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me out in the right direction…
He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name…