ARE YOU LISTENING

1 Samuel 3:10b AMPC – Then Samuel answered, Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.

Context: Samuel is learning to listen to, and respond to the voice of God… 

KAREN’S WORDS Samuel had not yet learned to hear God‘s voice, and so when he did hear his name, he thought Eli was calling him, and then Eli perceived after a while that God was actually speaking to SAMUEL, so he instructed Samuel and said the next time this happens I want you to say ‘speak Lord for your servant is listening.’

JERRY’S WORDS

Let me encourage you that you are reading this article to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Psalm 95:7 NKJV – Today, if you will hear His voice:

This is also spoken of in Hebrews chapters 3 & 4 

God is wanting to speak to us…

God is speaking, are we listening?

We are instructed to ¹⁷ “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5). But there is much more to prayer than us as people talking and God listening. We need to cultivate a LISTENING HEART.

Do we recognize His voice and His leading and working?

We want to share some thoughts about WAYS of hearing from God…

KAREN’S WORDS

I know that this is like preaching to the choir because most of you who are reading this already know these things that we’re talking about and have experienced them and yet it does help for us to be reminded of these things.

JERRY’S WORDS 

1. The primary way, and the number one way that we hear from God is by His Word. 

Thank God for His Word that we can hear Him speaking to us. 

His Word that is a lamp and to our feet and a light into our pathway. (Psalm 119:105)

His Word that we read is forever settled in heaven. (Psalm 119:89)

His Word that is changeless. 

Some people try to adapt the word to their lifestyle. 

But we are to change to what ‘thus says the Lord.’ 

So many want a God made in their image and they’re likeness… And lifestyle.

KAREN’S WORDS

In my 40s, the Lord began to pour out songs on me and most of the songs that came were straight from His Word. And unto this day when I hear someone preach a sermon or quote a scripture, many times the Lord will give me a tune to that Word of God. But this happens mostly when I myself am spending time in the Word. His Word is alive and one of the good things about putting his word to song is it helps us to remember what he has said, so that we obey.

JERRY’S WORDS

2. Another way that we hear from God is through people speaking prophetically. It’s important to seek to discern what is from God.

And we need to pray into prophetic words. Some people hear a word from a prophet, and immediately look forward and say, if God said it’ll come true. 

But that wasn’t Daniel’s approach. When he read in Jeremiah that after the 70 years, God was going to shift things for Israel and bring them back home. Daniel didn’t say, “Well if it’s the word of God through this prophet it’ll happen. No, he began to seek God with fasting and prayer.

I have heard some that seem more excited about stoning the prophet rather than accepting responsibility to do their part in prayer.

God is looking for us to be laborers together with Him, to pray for His kingdom to come, and His will to be done. 

When Jesus, Yeshua, told us to pray for “His kingdom to come and his will to be done,” He wasn’t simply trying to make His book a little longer, so it would sell it for more. But he was giving us the opportunity to participate with him in seeking for His kingdom come and his will be done.

I was sharing with a group the other day and I said, “Before we pick up stones, let’s get on our prayer bones… 

Instead of focusing on what may be wrong let’s pray for God’s purposes to be revealed and to come to pass.

——

Jeremiah 23:16b does speak of people who “speak a vision of their own heart, Not from the mouth of the Lord.” But my point is that when we hear a prophetic word, especially from someone with a proven track record that we begin to pray into and seek to discern what is God and seek for His plans and purposes to prevail.

3. Another way that God speaks is by directly speaking to us.

KAREN’S WORDS

After 5 years of serving in Jerusalem, we got rid of all of our earthly possessions in the States and when we  returned to Jerusalem from this task, I kept hearing a phrase, but ignoring it, not realizing that it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me. After about three days of incessantly hearing the same words, I said God is this You? And it was just amazing to me to think it could be God speaking. He was speaking to me “HarAdar” , a village 7 miles outside of Jerusalem, over and over again. Now back in January of the same year we had bought a vehicle (after five years of being car-less in Jerusalem), which was miraculous to us, but God was preparing us to move to Har Adar. A few months later after we first went out to Har Adar to explore if there might be a place for us to live in that community, we moved in to a large house and a fenced in yard and fruit trees, and herbs in a beautiful, beautiful neighborhood. I did not know that about six months later I was really going to need that beauty and that peace and quiet instead of living in the city center of Jerusalem. But the Lord knew, and He was watching over me.

JERRY’S WORDS

When we came to the end of our five-year B1 work visa which concluded a total of seven years in the land, we did not want to leave Israel. After 7 years, it was home. We had made a couple of trips over to Poland and Germany, trying to establish the possibility of Karen’s Jewish lineage. 

But we were coming to the end of our time and needed to let our landlord know something. 

We were setting up on the hill there in Har Adar, praying one evening as the sun was going down. God spoke to me, and said “It’s not that you are having to leave Israel, but I am sending you back to the United States for such a time as this.” In a matter of 45 seconds after months of grueling over this, I was recalibrated on the inside. I realize that I was fighting against God‘s purposes, but now I had cleared direction.

It was also around that time that God spoke to me, Washington DC. I had only been to Washington DC one other time in my life for Lou Eagle’s THE CALL in 2000.

Shortly after that, we were in the Galilee for a couple of days to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. We met with a couple that he is strong in the prophetic and has a track record of hearing from God. I hadn’t told him anything about what God had said… But he said I’ve been praying for you all for two days and he said I see Washington DC. There was much more to the prophetic word, but I won’t go into that now.

Since we’ve been back to the states, we have just completed our 21st trip to Washington DC (almost 800 miles away) where we have connected some with congressman, but mostly with other praying groups, and individuals, interceding for our nation and focusing a lot in on praying for the Supreme Court and the justices.

4. Another way that we hear from God is through our circumstances.

Toward the end of our time in Israel, Karen and I were driving north to join together with others for David Davis’ homecoming celebration.

We were about 20 minutes out and all of a sudden I got very sleepy. I told Karen I needed to pull off and get something to help wake me up. She said we’re only 20 minutes out, but I said I’ve got to stop right here.

After I had consumed a milkshake from McDonald’s… We were ready to leave and head on to Haifa. But, God wasn’t ready for us to leave yet. The car would not crank. 

KAREN’S WORDS

It would be lovely to have the Buehlers tell their side of the story, but as they were traveling up the highway to go also to David Davises celebration of life, Vesna was driving their Vehicle and she was extremely groggy and she told Jorgen I must get off at this exit to which Jorgen replied, but we’re only 20 minutes away, can’t we keep going? She said no I must have some coffee now.

 A car came around the back of the gas station and was just about to honk at us because our car by now was in the way from people trying to help us jump our car. When a look of surprise came on their faces, it was Vesna and Jorgen Buehler. They were so surprised to see us were we surprised to see them.  They spoke fluent Hebrew, we did not, so they were such a huge blessing to us, and from that providential meeting at the gas station where our car would not start, God turned that frustrating situation into a huge blessing for both the Buehlers’s and for Jerry and I. They had just received a notice The night before our gas station meeting that after living at their apartment for 8 years that they had 30 days to move out of their apartment. ended up moving into what was our house, and now they still live there. And a relationship was formed with them. That is precious till this day.

JERRY’S WORDS 

There’s a lot more to that story, but just to say, God also uses circumstances to speak to us and to lead us, He is faithful. He delights in taking things that the enemy means for evil and turning it around for our good and for his glory.

God is speaking today and I want to leave you with this challenge that there are things that God has spoken to us in the past that is not yet been fulfilled. Things that we knew were from God.

I want to challenge us to begin to pray again into those things that God spoke to us in the past and be listening for the words in the now and pray into them.