"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
Matthew 6:7,8 (NIV)
Have you ever known someone who was an excessive talker? A friend perhaps, calling you in the evenings to inform you about every moan, groan and complaint of the day, wearing your ear off until you could no longer hold the phone up to your ear? Did you even manage to get a word or two in, and if so, did it matter?
Were they even listening when you spoke?
Doesn't talking to someone like that make you just want to put the phone down and walk away? After all, they could go on for hours having a conversation of one. Your only job is to listen to them ramble on and on. It would seem they are not talking with us but at us. I believe there is a difference.
When someone talks just to be heard, they are self-absorbed and all consumed with their own thoughts and simply need someone to spew the overflow on to. We become the proverbial outhouse' for people like this. I don't know about you, but I don't like being someone's outhouse'. How do you think that makes God feel?
My point with all this is quite simple: Do we treat God this way? Or do we listen, I mean really listen to what God has to say. In a conversation with the Maker, who do you think should get more air time, us or Him?
Yes, we are encouraged to pray and come to God with all our concerns, petitions and requests. Nothing is too small a thing for God and He wants us to come to Him with everything. But after doing so, and knowing that He knows what we need before we even ask Him, shouldn't we be quiet long enough to listen?
"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires."
James 1:19,20 (NIV)
We discover that listening to god takes effort, (especially when we are riled up inside) because He will not speak up over our loud thoughts and inner business. God, who is ever longsuffering with our ways, will wait for us to come to Him. It is up to us to learn how to yield to Holy Ghost inspired self-control over our emotional uproars and mental madness and simply be still' before Him. God is speaking to us all the time, answering prayers that we have forgotten about, already rambling off our next list of requests. He is subtle, the still small voice that is neither rude nor demanding. If we do not learn to quiet ourselves in His presence, we may never hear God.
The voice of God is all around us. He is in and through everything if we would look for Him and truly listen.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:7,8 (NIV)
Elsewhere, God says, "Seek me and you will find me."
God speaks softly to our souls though nature, people, anything and everything, but most importantly God speaks to us through his word.
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing ithe will be blessed in what he does." James 1:22-25 (NIV)
Ever have that friend I mentioned at the beginning of this article, call you up for advice and then when you're finally allowed to respond and give it, you're greeted with "Yes, of course you are right, I will do this or that." Then they turn around and dismiss your advice as soon as they get off the phone with you and perhaps go right back to doing the same things that got them in the trouble to begin with! This is what it is like when we say we are listening (but we do not listen) to what God's word says for our lives and don't immediately put them into practice.
To me, there is no real point in praying to God, if we don't do so with humility the moves us to silence so we can hear what the Almighty God would have us do with our messed up lives. Might as well pray to the ever shifting winds if we are going to pray to God and then not listen for Him to come at the unknown hour of our need.
As always, thanks for listening.
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10 (NIV)