How to Be Heard

 

II Kings 22:18-19  ". . . As touching the words which thou hast heard; Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake . . . I also have heard thee, saith the LORD." Perhaps this scenario has happened to you: you dial a phone number, the line rings, a voice answers, and either a) you think it is a voicemail recording when it is actually a person; or b) you think you are speaking to a person when, in reality, it's a recording.  I can't tell you how often I've called a church or cell phone and really thought I was speaking to the voice I heard, only to quickly find out that I was having a conversation with myself!  You can't have a two-way conversation with someone's voicemail! Instinctively, we want to be heard.  We want our prayers to be heard by God.  King Josiah reminds us in II Kings 22 that to be heard, it is imperative to hear God.  We have a wonderful advantage over believers in the Bible; we have the complete Word of God.  Josiah had to go to a central place where a single copy of God's Word was kept.  Most of us only have to go a few feet in our house to find one of the many copies of the Bible we own! If we are going to hear God, we must have humility of heart.  Verse 19 says, "Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD. . . ."  And humility of heart only comes after hearing what God has said.  So many times we are hard of heart because we are hard of hearing!  It sounds simple, but you cannot hear God if you are not reading His Word.  Reading the Bible takes time, but there is nothing spiritual about reading a passage yet missing the point of what you are reading.  We all could probably use a lot more thinking (the Bible word is meditation) in our daily Bible reading. It will be amazing what God has to say to you in His Word when you take time to actually listen!  Humble yourself and hear what He is saying to you.  To be heard, you must hear God.  God's nature never changes, so what you find true of Him in the Bible will be true today and tomorrow.  In the busyness of life, don't forget to hear from God! Camp Quotes... "Our testimony for Christ ought to be the motivation for every action and attitude." -Pastor Mike Edwards Prayer Requests:  1. Safety for families traveling home from camp today. 2. Groups traveling to camp this weekend from Maryland, Tennessee, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey, and Georgia      Looking for more devotionals? Visit the archives here

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