When he has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the stranger’s voice.”
-Jesus
John 10:4+5
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That idea of recognizing Jesus’ voice has been a focus for me the past few weeks.
We all have ‘dark nights’ spiritually
Dry patches
Times in the desert
I’ve been in one of those times for about the past 6 months or so on and off.
It’s interesting that we tend to talk so much about following Jesus
But we never talk about how to hear his voice
Let alone differentiate it from other voices
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a lot of internal dialogue going all the time
Sometimes it’s hard to quiet that down so I can hear God’s voice
I think a lot of that is I don’t actually want to hear his voice
If I did, I’d make it more of a priority to seek him out
I think the two parts of hearing Jesus’ voice are this:
Reading his word – So we can recognize his voice
Making space to listen
Listening prayer is a tricky thing, that I have by no means ‘figured out’
But the one thing that helps me is starting prayer by asking God to quiet my heart and soul
And asking him what he’d want to speak to me
I find that opens me up to being able to hear him without the distractions of my head.
And once I can hear his voice, and recognize it
Then I can follow him.
Sixty-six books in a year 