Tuesday: Willingness to Listen
“The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Then Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening’” (1 Samuel 3:10, NIV).
Have you ever heard that still small voice of the Holy Spirit but ignored it? Consequently, everything went wrong, and you thought to yourself later, Oh no, why didn’t I listen?
First Samuel describes a story of an old man and two wicked sons who didn’t listen to the Lord and a little boy who did. Though there were strong warnings from God, those who needed to change their course didn’t.
Read their story in 1 Samuel 2:12-3:18. What contrast is made apparent here between those who listen to God and those who don’t?
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
Eli’s sons had other things on their minds than the things of God. And even when Eli, after hearing what God wanted, spoke to his sons, he didn’t seem to do anything else. And his sons were obviously not ready to submit the details of their lives to God’s will. What a contrast with the young Samuel!
Preacher Charles Stanley describes how essential it is to cultivate openness to God’s voice in what he calls “shifting into neutral.” He says: “The Holy Spirit … does not speak for the sake of passing along information. He speaks to get a response. And He knows when our agenda has such a large slice of our attention that it is a waste of time to suggest anything to the contrary. When that is the case, He is often silent. He waits for us to become neutral enough to hear and eventually obey.” — The Wonderful Spirit-Filled Life, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992), Pages 179, 180.
| What do you think Stanley means by becoming “neutral enough”? When you think about your openness to God, what things often prevent you from being “neutral enough to hear and eventually obey”? What do you need to do in your life to cultivate openness to God’s voice and a decisiveness to be obedient to His direction? |
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Christina Waller for Monday’s lesson mentioned that ‘dying to self’ is an attitude; I agree. I think that our heavenly Father is changing our heart and mind in order to change our attitude.
What does Stanley mean by becoming “neutral enough”? In my opinion, he means to become ‘still’ enough to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice internally. The change of the believer's heart and mind impacts the voice he follows; this takes place in the spirit of man.
It would apply to young Samuel who was already ‘still’ in his inner being, already able to ‘tune’ in to hear the voice of the Spirit of God talking to him. Eli’s son might have been too preoccupied with the physical, emotional, and personal aspects of being the son of the priest Eli instead of being the son of God.
I do not think 'hearing' to be as much a matter of ‘obedience’ as it is more a disposition to ‘hear’; it is a matter of ones, by the Love of the heavenly Father, pre-conditioned attitude.
We who listen to the voice of God are not reluctantly giving up our own ways of thinking and acting, instead we are glad and joyful that we have our guarding build into our conscience, heart and mind, which directs our path; all we do is follow.
So, in order to establish the ‘willingness’ to listen, one needs to love the Father with all ones heart and mind and ones fellow man as our old 'self' was loved by the Father in order to change it.