Listening Prayer

We tend to hear what we want to hear, don’t we? Every parent can attest to the amazingly selective hearing of a child who can’t hear a megaphone ordering her to get ready for bed, but who can hear a whisper through walls when parents are discussing personal matters!

There was a man who noticed that every time he ate one of his favorite meats, pork, about 3 times a week, his foot pained him terribly throughout the rest of the evening. A visit to his family doctor confirmed his suspicions. It was gout brought on by eating pork. When he returned home, the man’s wife asked him what the doctor said and the man replied - “He said I’ll be having gout about three times a week!”

Poor listening skills are in evidence all around us!

Some husbands don’t listen well to wives.

There are supervisors who fail to really hear their employees.

Parents dealing with a busy life, can stop really listening to their kids.

Many of us aren’t really paying attention when we’re having a ‘conversation.’ Instead, we are planning what to say next. I’m sure each of us could tell some funny stories about conversations that weren’t really conversations at all. I have a professional colleague who has just about the worst listening skills of anyone I know. He interrupts frequently, always compares, and almost always makes the conversation about himself and/or his experiences. Sadly in the years that I’ve known him, I have given up on having a real or meaningful conversation with him. In fact, I dread those moments when I have to be in a room with him.

Today, I want to help you realize how important it is to listen to God when you pray! Wouldn’t it tragic if the Lord of Heaven were to dread when He heard you praying? Imagine the Father turning to the Son and saying-“There he is again, and he never listens to a thing that the Spirit says to him!”

TEXT - 1 Samuel 3: 1-19 Pew Bible 423

Take note of the problem outlined in the 1^st verse -

“the word of the LORD was rare... there were not many visions...”

I like the way the Message states it - “the revelation of God was rarely heard or seen.”

From the context of the passage, we can deduce that the apparent silence of Heaven wasn’t the result of God’s choice to disappear. He hadn’t stopped speaking. The spiritual climate was so bad that the people couldn’t hear His voice! Eli’s sons, the spiritual leaders, were corrupt - stealing offerings brought to the Lord, sleeping with the women of Israel who came to worship, and treating holy things with contempt.

Wow, does that sound like today to you? The Christian world is full of corruption!

The Catholic church is coming through a terrible time of scandal that has turned thousands, perhaps even millions away from the church.

The evangelical church has had so many scandals in the last 3 decades that I’ve lost count. There is so much money in religion that many Americans dismiss organized religion as a big scam! And tragically, they aren’t far from wrong in too many situations.

The consequence of all this corruption is that the voice of God is lost to millions, His word unheard.

Jeremiah warned of prophets whose words were without inspiration.

“These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don’t talk with them. The sermons they’ve been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark." (Jeremiah 14:14, The Message)

Peter is even stronger in his condemnation of those who speak in God’s name simply to enrich themselves

"These people are as useless as dried-up springs of water or as clouds blown away by the

wind—promising much and delivering nothing. They are doomed to blackest darkness. They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With lustful desire as their bait, they lure back into sin those who have just escaped from such wicked living. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. (2 Peter 2:17-19, NLT)

Believer - let me personalize the challenge today.

∙ If you are honest, can you say that you are hearing God’s voice, that His word speaks to you,

that you know what He wants in your life?

∙ Do you know God’s voice well enough to know when one of those lying preachers is scamming you?

∙ Do you know the word so that when you hear someone speaking about “God told me this,” or “God said that...” - you can discern the truth in the matter?

We need to learn how to LISTEN!

Simply doing religious things, saying prayers, or going to church does not guarantee that we are hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit. Young Samuel was living at the temple, doing God’s work every day. He was in close association with Eli, the prophet of the nation, yet the Bible tells us that “Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from the Lord before.” Three times Samuel heard God, but mistook the voice for that of Eli. Samuel was responsive, but because he didn’t know God, was unable to listen properly, to pay attention to the Lord long enough to hear the message he needed to know!

Eli, a good man, despite the sins of his sons, knew God and recognized that the Lord was trying to speak to the young boy, Samuel, so he counseled him - “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”

“Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening-”

is a prayer that you and I need to learn to pray and practice. Even sincere Believers, too often, think of prayer as a one-way communication. They ‘say their prayers,’ talking on and on, but almost never quieting themselves long enough to hear the voice of the Lord.

Foster, one of my favorite teachers, writes - “we have the dubious distinction of being able to communicate more and say less than any civilization in history.” The flood of information and communication has overwhelmed our minds and left many of us with a ‘hearing’ disability. We just learn to ignore most of what comes our way, to tune out the noise that surrounds us. Tragically, that sometimes includes tuning out God’s voice, too! That leads to living a spiritually impoverished life for it is the word of God that nourishes our soul, that gives us vitality and strength. Jeremiah speaks of the Word of God as food - "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty." (Jeremiah 15:16, NIV) John, in the Revelation, time and time again urges ‘let those with ears hear what the Spirit is saying!’

I’d like to suggest a couple of ways that we can find restoration for our spiritual hearing so that we can know God’s will, sort out truth from error, and be strong in the Lord.

First - we need to practice the discipline of silence!

The husband who wants tor really hear his wife has to stop talking!

The parent who wants to really learn what is in the soul of their teenage son or daughter, has to learn when to stop lecturing, to fall silent, and invite the conversation to go to another level.

If we want to hear God, we have to learn to shut up! That’s not easy to do. Sometimes, overwhelmed by life, or in times when our pain is intense, we just want to yell at God. We want to bang our fist on the table and demand an explanation, there may be times when that is exactly what we need to do, but then — if we really want to hear from God – we must be quiet.

Job, in his intense suffering, which left him reeling, full of doubt, started to rail against God, but then he says, “I put my hand over my mouth!” In other words, “I chose to shut up and listen!” There is certainly a time to pour out our hearts to God with earnest cries, with great emotion. In weeks to come we will study prayers of God’s people that included shouting, singing, worshiping, desperate cries for His intervention.

I hope that your prayer life is marked with intensity and focus, a desperate hunger for God. Yet, it is critically important that we regularly put our hand over our mouth, quiet our heart, still our mind, and LISTEN intently for the Spirit’s voice.

“But, Pastor, what if I hear the wrong spiritual voice, what if I’m misled by a lying spirit?”

It’s a good question. We are subject to other voices- those of demon spirits, even our own fallen nature. That is why it is very, very important to prepare for times of listening with confession of known sins. As we are before God and we become aware of unholy words, unforgiveness, carelessness about the things of God- there is no need to run away and hide from His holy Presence. Instead, because we have such a Great Savior, who has fully satisfied the holy demands of our God, we admit to our sins, agreeing with God, and asking His forgiveness. Then we press into His Presence, drawn into His embrace. And we listen!

What we rest in is this - where God is, evil isn’t! If we ‘in Christ,’ no evil influence can linger long to lie to us or deceive us. So choose to be silent, for extended times, as you listen.

Second - we must learn to meditate in the Written Word, the Scripture!

This is different from Bible study. When we invite the Spirit of God to lead us into the Scripture in meditation, we begin to receive the Word into our being as food, as nourishment, like the very air we breathe! Please do not misunderstand me in this moment. I am not setting aside the importance or necessity of diligent study of the Bible. If we do not do the hard work of understanding the text, our meditation will likely be flawed - and we risk being led by our own imagination to wild, weird conclusions. Christian meditation, unlike many meditation techniques, is not an attempt to become blank or empty. It is a desire to be filled with the Word of God!

There is a prayerful reading of the Scripture that differs from study. We open the Bible while we pray and invite the Spirit to make it, as Hebrews says, “full of living power. ... sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12, NLT) As we meditate, giving control of ourselves to God, relinquishing the need to make something happen, to wrest something from God - relaxing quietly before Him, He leads us into the passage so that it becomes His Word to us.

Many of us will find this unbelievably difficult because of the hurried way of life that pressures us and because we are part of a culture that measures every activity by an immediate result.

If we enter into meditation with one eye on the clock, our hearing will be dulled.

If we go to prayerful meditation with a need to speed through a set number of verses or finish whatever daily reading we’ve assigned to ourselves, mostly likely the Spirit will be pushed to the side.

I’d suggest that meditation on the Word with the intent of hearing from God will require patience, persistence, and perhaps even some coaching. I’d encourage those of you who wish to attempt it as a novice, that you take a passage from the Gospels and soak in it for days until you can nearly repeat it from memory, see it in your imagination, bring it back to your conscious mind without even opening the Book. Don’t be discouraged by seeming silence, when you get ‘nothing.’

Instead take the attitude spoken of by the Psalm writer who says, I lift my eyes to you, O God, enthroned in heaven.

We look to the Lord our God for his mercy,

just as servants keep their eyes on their master,

as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.

Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy! - Psalm 123 1-2

In that holy place, we learn of God’s great love for us, of His plans for us, of His power that makes us stand up under the pressures of life. A listening Christian, one who knows the voice of God, has an amazing ability to persevere through the toughest of times.

In closing today, I invite you to turn with me to

John 15: 5-8, Pew Bible page 1677 READ

“Remain in me.... Allow my words to remain in you.” Jesus is inviting us to become listeners, to say, “Speak, Lord, I’m listening.” And He will put His words in us.

The result, He says, is ‘fruitfulness.’ There can no real abundance of spiritual life, no overflowing joy in our Christian life, unless we have learned to be listen! Jesus went on to promise - "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting his own ideas; he will be telling you what he has heard." (John 16:13, NLT)

As we learn from the text in 1 Samuel, when God speaks to us, it isn’t always warm, fuzzy, comforting words! Young Samuel heard God speak of terrible judgment about to fall on Eli’s family for their sins. The boy was so stunned by the word he heard, he wouldn’t speak of it the next day.

Sometimes His word is corrective. Sometimes it is instructive, sometimes it is informative, but it is always what is BEST for us! Christian friend, be a listener.

Slow down your prayer life.

Make it much less about ‘you’ and more about Him,

not just about telling God things, but also about talking with the Lord of life.

Amen.