Good morning…
Tonight I will speak to a down-to-earth group of women, women who do so much for so many in our local community. Last year, this group gracefully hosted a large gathering to experience the wisdom of a newly published author. She spoke of finding a passion and following it. She spoke of her personal path toward publication success. She spoke of sharing our God-designed gifts with the needy world. She sold several books. She signed them by name. She sashayed in and sashayed out and flew back to her place and to her people.
All of the rest of us drove home on fumes of inspiration, checked in with our loved ones, and climbed into our beds for a normal night’s sleep. We woke to everyday demands in our everyday lives and we did our very best to balance everyday needs, our own and those of others. “Find a passion and follow it.” “Seek a personal path to success.” “Share your God-designed gifts with the world.” Who has time for these grandiose endeavors when there are tummies to be fed, laundry to be done, and dust bunnies having babies in every corner of our living room?
Herein lies our challenge: how do we mix the mundane and the meaningful, marrying God’s big picture plan and our small, daily deeds? How do we nurture our souls while balancing our roles? Harnessing the power of the moment at hand, how do we choose between important and important and important? Without one common sheet of music, how are we each to compose a life, blending discord into harmony, playing the high notes and the low, honoring the basics and the profound?
I have a single response to life’s cacophony of questions, and it is the title of my talk for tonight. The Art of Holy Listening: Pray. Wait. Hear. Obey. If we cultivate the art of holy listening, regularly tuning our inner ear to God’s invisible frequency, we will be guided through life’s busiest moments to notice sacred tidbits sprinkled through today. Unfortunately, the LORD does not shout one clear answer, immediately, in neon lights. God tucks the Holy Spirit into our pulsing, human hearts, whispering divine nudges into our awareness.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it,” Isaiah 30:21 (NIV),
Sue
