Reflected Light

Thanks to a tip-off from a friend, I have a new app on my phone. It listens to birdsong and tells me what I am hearing. I love turning it on in the early morning while the birds are in full voice and seeing what it picks up in the railway cutting at the back of my house. This morning it picked up blackbirds, robins, wood pigeons, magpies, crows, a very loud wren, great tits, blue tits, a dunnock, a song thrush and even a blackcap.

And thanks to the regularity with which I’m doing this, I find I can now confidently identify a number of birds just from their song, without relying on my eyes to judge which they are.

For the last couple of months we have been leading a hearing from God course. One of the things we teach is that to hear well and accurately from Him we need to work on our relationship with Him. This means that if we are trying to listen in order to give a word from Him to someone else, we need to listen to Him for ourselves first.

In Matthew 4:4, Jesus (quoting Deuteronomy 8:3) says, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

I need physical food every day, so how much more do I need the words that come from the mouth of God every day? These words are life-giving and transformative. They are spoken from a place of complete and perfect love and provide me with solid rock on which to build my life.

I long to grow in hearing Him all the time – for the people I meet and the situations I encounter, and I know that to do that I need to tune in, just as with identifying my birds. In order to do this I have begun a new journal, and almost every day for the last few months I have tried to deliberately still myself and listen. It can be just a couple of words, or it can be several paragraphs. It can be inspired by the passage of Scripture I am reading, or reflect all He is saying about events of that day.

Some days flow easier than others, and sometimes I still feel like I am just making it up. But I know that in time I will tune in and become more familiar with His voice.

Activation – from Lion Bites day 61, which inspired this practice.

Take time each day to quiet yourself and listen for God’s voice. He is speaking to you throughout every day. Start a new notebook and write down in it what He is saying to you. Practice the ‘art of listening’ each day. It will become easier and more natural the more you repeat this exercise. You may even want to draw what you see, alongside what you hear. In time you will begin to hear God speaking when you haven’t deliberately silenced yourself. Repeat the practice daily, asking the questions: “What do You want me to hear from You today, Lord?,” “What do I need to hear?,” and “What are You excited to share with me?”