Listening

Listening. Although I have professed the importance of listening in prayer, I admit that have never clearly grasped the concept. When praying for guidance, I present my problem to God, and, as a result of that prayer, I either have an answer or I don't. Sometimes the answer is clear. For instance, during my senior year of college I prayed, "Father God, I don't think I want to be a teacher. I want to drop the teacher's certificaton option from my degree. Is this a good idea?" No. I knew it within five minutes of the prayer. The answer was not audible, but is was clear: I was not to drop teacher's certification from my degree. I remember praying what to do upon graduation from college. Kristen had asked me to come up to her hometown and live with her in her parents' basement. Other than that option, I had the choice of continuing to live in Charleston, moving home to my parents', or getting a job somewhere completely new. I prayed, and it was clear: move in with Kristen. Even when I first moved in with her and was feeling lost and new and out-of-place, wondering why I didn't take a job in LeRoy with my parents, I clung to my confidence that I was where God had led me, and I would trust Him despite my fears. In those cases, listening was easy. When the answer comes within a few moments of the prayer, not much listening is required. However, I can only remember perhaps three or four times when answers came so quickly, so clearly. It usually isn't so easy. When the answer is not so easily discerned, I just hope that God is granting me wisdom in my decisions and that my motives are glorifying to Him. Through prayer that my decisions would be made out of love for Him, reading His word, and seeking the wisdom and guidance of others, I do believe that God has been faithful in preparing my path, protecting my way. God has certainly answered prayer far more abundantly than three or four times. Yet, listening has had only one function in my prayer life: I ask, then I listen for the answer. If I do not ask, I do not think to listen.

The problem with listening only after asking is that, if I only listen after I ask, then I do not always know what to ask in the first place. My requests become based on emotional and physical indicators such as weariness, disappointment, grief, illness, or injury, and only when they reach the point of pain. Weariness can be detected long before I am exhausted, and anger can be discerned miles down the road from an outburst. Lonliness can be brought before the Lord well in advance of tears, and one can certainly pray for physical ailments long before a doctor's appt., antibiotics, and two days off work is necessary. When I do not listen, but only react to what is uncomfortable, my prayers become just that - reactionary. Trouble and unrest have already surfaced - they cannot be prevented, only handled. Hearts have already been hurt, words have already been spoken, time has already been lost. What would God put on my heart if I listened before I prayed? Maybe God would reveal a smoldering anger in my heart, something He wants to teach me about before it damages a relationship. Maybe He sees a repressed loneliness in my heart, and He wants to address it before I start tring to quell it with social events and tv. Maybe I hurt someone, and I need to know about it so that I can apologize. Of course, listening will not rid our lives of hardship - there will still be lonliness, grief, illness, and tragedy. But I wonder how much stronger I would be in the Lord if I sought Him solitude so that I could listen to Him, learn from Him, find the center of my life in Him, and learn from Him what is important in my prayers instead of only running to Him when I get myself into trouble or am in pursuit of a blessing. So often I know what I want, so I ask for it, trusting that if it's God's will it will come to be, and if not, it won't. In doing so the majority of the time, I am not allowing my heart to be opened to God's will, and I am not allowing my heart's desires to be conformed to His. Instead of praying for what I want, just hoping that what I want is what God wants, why don't I take some time to listen? "Father, what should I pray in this situation? I want my heart to be conformed to yours - teach me how to pray in this situation. Give me wisdom as to what is needed. Let Your will in this situation be what I pray for" or "Search my heart at this moment and teach me what I need to pray in terms of being conformed to Christ's likeness. Show me where I am straying away from You or where I am hurting other people."

There's a whole other world out there. In prayer, we draw near. We draw near to God. I'm praying that I would silence myself enough to listen for my God. This world is noisy enough; it can go without my voice for awhile. God, I want to draw near; let me listen for awhile.