Got Hearing?

If I am completely honest, listening is a hard skill that I am working at but do not feel I have mastered this skill or as I get older, the skill is more difficult. Can I have a witness.

I used to think I was an excellent multi-tasker but once again the older I get, I am much better at doing one thing at a time.

I am a nurse and when I first learned to take a blood pressure there was a need to listen carefully to hearing the first sound and when the sound went away. Learning to listen to lung sounds and to detect the abnormal sounds like wheezing involved much practice before I felt comfortably charting the lung sounds I heard. Listening to the heart was much the same, to listen for the heart sounds the lupp, dubb, and then there can be a murmur, and a rubb.

In order to listen, I find I must take time to really listen and hear. We have five senses. Hearing is one of those senses. How many times do we disregard what we are hearing or we have trouble listening. Sometimes, my husband will come to our bedroom when I am watching a movie, but he comes in at the end of the movie, he naturally wants to know what the movie is about and I am trying to hear the end of the movie, so I am not listening to him. Other times, I have worked all day, my job is a case manager so I listen to patients, physicians, co-workers all day long.  So, when he says something to me: I find I have tuned him out, I am not listening. I hear often, I told you________.

In the 1980’s I journaled the first time since being a little girl who wrote in her diary. The first class I attended at church where there was instruction on how to have a quite time, the book we studied was ‘Lord I Am Listening’. We were encouraged to name our journal, my journal was ‘The Quiet Heart’.

I have had many jounrnal over the years, ones I made, ones I have purchased.

My journal I use now is from

Becky Tirabassi. She has encourage me over the years, one of her books, “Let God Talk To You: When You Hear Him You will never be the same.”  She said, “When God talks to me, I always feel motivated–physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Whether gentle or bold, His words give me courage to do or to say something, to stop or to start something, most often to help someone else.” Her book, “Let Prayer Change Your Life” did just that, it changed my life. The journal has my part, and there is God’s part. My PART is Praise, Admission, Requests and Thanksgiving. GOD’s Part

is L, M, N, O, P: LISTEN, Messages, New Testament, Old Testament, Proverds and a To Do section. I use the Change Your Life Bible which has scripture that can be read in a year broke up into Old and New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. Becky encourages one day in advance make an appointment with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then keep the appointment.

This system works for me.

So what was the last thing God pressed on my heart and He prompted me this morning to give away one of the extra books, I ordered, by Jo Ann Fore, ‘When a Woman finds her Voice.”

Do I struggle to hear his voice? Yes when I have to much on my mind. When my pain is great, when I am feeling sorry for myself, and when I rush with no regard to God and what he might be asking of me.

How do I hear Him?

I hear him when I read his holy word, when I praise him, when I am aware of nature, when I journal during my quite time. There is that still small voice that guides me when I make decisions.

Do I recognize his voice, Yes….he calls me beloved. Psalm 46: 10, “Be still and know that I am God.”