Listen for Christ in Your Life

Scripture

Our verse for today comes from John 11:41-42, ” Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me. “

Background

In the midst of what seems like one of the longest weeks on record, where each day has crept by at a pace embarrassingly slow even to a snail, and Friday ought to have been here several Fridays ago, I still feel compelled to declare that time is flying by. While I look at the clock and have to convince myself that its hands are not moving backwards when no one is watching like some story out of the Twilight Zone, or I wonder if my employer has somehow altered the space-time continuum in an effort to get twenty hours of work out of my normal ten hour day, I look at my children and feel like the days and years were jet-propelled and supersonic. As the eldest is but a few months from embarking on college, seemingly just days from having learned to walk and spell his name, and the other five will follow after at light speed, I pray for them all the more earnestly to seek after God wherever He may take them. And as they have grown, each developing in his or her own way, I have learned to pray perhaps the most powerful prayer that I can utter as a parent. For as much as I would give my life for theirs, my heart’s desire, as I’m sure yours is for your kids of whatever age, is that they would know and love the Lord Jesus.

Application

And my prayer has been that I would point them to Him, and that I would do it by listening to them. For all the angst and struggles to have them obey and respect, my greatest victories have come when I ask God to change me to help me change them. Whatever connection we may have, whatever witness I may have been, whatever we may have worked through, none of it has occurred without the Holy Spirit first doing a work on me. And so I say to you, listen. Not primarily to fix or solve, and certainly not with a defensive spirit, but hear what God is saying for you through them. Listen to what is really going on. For when someone knows that they are being heard, it’s as if they could become or do anything. Even raise a dead man from the grave.

Charge

As we seek Him today, follow Christ with your ears. And perhaps lead someone towards Him the same way.