Thursday, February 13, 2003
Listening to God
Although I didn't really get a lot of the chapter I read from Hebrews today, one thing did come through quite cleary: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion" (3:15). The idea of listening to God is not new, but I was struck by the use of the word "today".
It reminded me of a passage from the Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape encourages Wormwood to keep his charge's mind away from the present and to focus it instead on the past or future. So much of the time I think back on all the sins I've committed, or I look forward and dream about the type of Christian I could become, when really I should be thinking about the present, what God wants me to do today, now.
Then, "coincidentally", todays devotion in "My Utmost for His Highest" also talked about listening to God. It didn't really deal so much with the issue of dwelling too much on the past, or fantasizing too much about the future as much as it did with "other things" that take up our time.
Anyway, putting the two things together, it's pretty clear to me that I should be working on listening to God, today.
Although I didn't really get a lot of the chapter I read from Hebrews today, one thing did come through quite cleary: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion" (3:15). The idea of listening to God is not new, but I was struck by the use of the word "today".
It reminded me of a passage from the Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape encourages Wormwood to keep his charge's mind away from the present and to focus it instead on the past or future. So much of the time I think back on all the sins I've committed, or I look forward and dream about the type of Christian I could become, when really I should be thinking about the present, what God wants me to do today, now.
Then, "coincidentally", todays devotion in "My Utmost for His Highest" also talked about listening to God. It didn't really deal so much with the issue of dwelling too much on the past, or fantasizing too much about the future as much as it did with "other things" that take up our time.
Anyway, putting the two things together, it's pretty clear to me that I should be working on listening to God, today.
