A couple of weeks ago, while Gabe was speaking he said something that caught my attention and got me thinking. Gabe was talking about how he wants to make sure that he’s hearing God as well as he can, and being obedient to God as quickly as he can. This week at intercession, pastor Alvin was also sharing about the city-wide prayer meeting he’s organizing. He mentioned that a word that was given to him was, “listen well, obey quickly.”
This whole idea of listening well and obeying quickly has been on my mind recently because I think it’s something that God is trying to teach me. Maybe the idea resonates with you as well.
The first part of this is to listen well. In 2019, we started discipleship level 1 where the focus was on hearing God. We spent much of 2019 learning about hearing God from the pulpit and practicing it in different ways. In terms of how we can learn to listen well, one of the best ways is through practice. To listen well we practice listening often! One way I’ve heard it explained is that it’s like someone calling you on your phone for the first time. The first time they call, you have no idea who the number belongs to or who is on the other line. But after you’ve spoken to them, you save their number on your phone, and you know exactly who is calling every time they call. The same idea applies to hearing God. It’s by getting familiar with God’s voice that we learn to listen well.
In the discipleship level 1 series, in lesson 13 we also learned about some guidelines for how to listen well. Hearing God must not replace Bible study, it must not replace good counsel, it must not replace common sense, and it must not replace human authority. It’s when we’re able to combine the best of those things that we know we’re really listening well. We’re listening well when what we’re hearing lines up with the Bible, good counsel, common sense, and authorities in our lives. When this happens, we know we’re really growing in our ability to listen well.
The second part of this is to obey quickly. This is probably the big area where God is challenging me most. If I were to be honest with myself, my usual tendency is to sit back a bit and take things easy. I’m usually a pretty laid-back person. But this is probably why the idea of “obey quickly” is so difficult for me. I’m quite fine with the idea of obeying God. It’s the idea of doing it quickly that’s hard! As someone who’s naturally laid-back, this is going to require a real change of heart.
Maybe for some of us, the idea of “listening well” catches our attention. Maybe we need to make more of an effort to hear God, or do it more regularly. For others, maybe the idea of “obey quickly” catches our attention. Whatever the case may be, my prayer is that we would all learn to listen well and obey quickly together. It’s a big part of what it means to grow in maturity!