Tuning into the Call of God

I have been completely inconsistent in my blog posting.  The reason is because I took on the challenge of teaching a class at Kent State and it has completely sucked up what little free time I have.  I did not quite realize how much time it would take.  But isn’t that the case with all of us.  We get so hung up on the busyness of life that we miss the important things.  This summer has come and gone.  We are now officially in Fall.  For us in Cleveland, Falls are not so bad.  It is the winter and the absence of spring that is so bad. 

We had Bethany here with us for six weeks or so this summer.  And as we have gotten to appreciate the summers here, we ate out on the deck a lot.  And because we had so much rain in the spring, the mosquitos were out in force.  There were a number of days where we had to go back in because they were “bugging” us so much.  But I had heard on one of my podcasts of a new type of iPhone app that actually emits a high piercing sound that apparently drives away mosquitos.  So in searching around, I found a number of apps that do just that (after all there is always an “app for that”).  I downloaded the app and it actually seemed to work, although Debsue and Bethany may dispute that.  The other thing we learned is that I could not hear the pitch of this app, but Bethany could.  In fact, if I cranked it up, it was bothersome to her.  We even ran a test where I turned it off and on to see if she really could hear the sound and she convinced me through the non-statistical sample that she could in fact hear the noise. 

While an incomplete analogy, I did think of the fact that some of us are attuned to God’s calling and some of us aren’t.  We hear God speaking into our life and we act on it.  Maybe it is a prompting, an urging that comes from Scripture.  Maybe it is a pastor speaking a sermon that almost seems to be written specifically for us.  Maybe it is that small voice of God speaking to us in relationship.  Whatever that is, it is coming from the Holy Spirit and we have to be sensitized to it.  If we do not open ourselves up to hearing, we will not hear.  It is called “quenching the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19).  It is so easy to do – we get hung up in ourselves that we are not pliable to the Spirit. 

I have found memorizing Scripture to be one of the best formulas to training my mind to receive the Spirit.  We need to have “ears to hear” (Luke 8:8, 14:35) which is a readiness to hear God speaking into our hearts.  Another avenue is just being quiet before God.  That is so hard for me to do.  I am a Type A and always on the go, but just relaxing and talking to God in an attitude of expectant prayer is the ticket.  Worshipping God through music is yet another way of opening yourself up to the call of God.  I find that when I listen to gospel music the first thing in the morning, I am much better equipped to hear God’s voice throughout the day.  Finally, it is repelling of sin that is essential to allow us to hear God’s voice.  Psalm 66:18 says the Lord will not hear us if we are in sin.  If He can’t hear us, He won’t be speaking to us either.  That is a sure fire way of driving the Spirit’s speaking to us.  So we have to have repentant hearts that immediately repents of sin and calls out to God for help in ongoing rejection of sinful habits.  By filling our minds with Scripture, prayerful attitudes, and joyful worship, God is able to speak to us.