When God Speaks {How He Longs That We Hear So He Can Bless Us} But Will We Listen?

How easy it is to hear and not listen.


It happens. So often I’m telling the four year old, “Look at me” when I’m trying to get him to actually hear what I’m saying. “Throw that in the garbage please! Honey, look at me . . .”


Isn't he cute!?


How easy it is to hear and not listen.


It happens when I’m driving and a song comes on that I’ve heard 10,000 times, and suddenly I really hear it for the first time. “Why didn’t I ever catch that before?”


In the book of Jeremiah, God gives Jeremiah, the prophet His messages to warn Israel of impending disaster if they don’t repent. And no one listens. As far as I know, not one person turned to God through Jeremiah’s message.


Can you imagine having a hard message to deliver, one that made people angry and hateful, and no one, not even one listens?


To tell you the truth, that is why I wanted to study this book, I am amazed by Jeremiah’s relentless obedience, composure and endurance. I want that. I pray for that.


Often I feel anger if someone doesn’t believe the truth, or I begin to doubt that I am in the truth when it seems many others are going a different way in their thinking. This causes me to return to God in His Word and thankfully, He clarifies truth.


If only we would turn there, to Him, we would find the good way. Oppression would cease. Bondages would be broken . . . 


I remember a couple of years ago, landing on a blog where the man was making a biblical case for polygamy. His arguments were so convincing using scripture that I was shaken. So I closed my computer, and as I prayed and began to listen for the God’s voice, I heard His familiar words, “Keep the marriage bed pure.” Hebrews 13:4 and “A man should leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24


He settled my soul into the truth, but I left that experience amazed at how quickly my mind could go in a direction based on human logic and reasoning. And what is even weirder, is that logically, polygamy makes no sense. It only leads to competition, and pain. The things God’s loving boundaries are meant to protect us against. Duh. 


I remembered Eve being hooked by the deceiver when he appealed to her logic and she, reasoning with him, stretched God’s word to make it sound as if He was holding out on her instead of protecting her by the limit he instituted in the garden. Genesis 3:2-3 (God never said she shouldn’t touch the fruit.)


In the book of Jeremiah, I don’t think I could accurately count the times that God said something to the effect of,

“But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.  . . .And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.” Jeremiah 7:2428

My heart broke reading, “truth has perished.” What a tragic place to be. Living without truth is living in bondage. John 8:32


Honestly, as I read through this rather depressing book, (It’s depressing if you don’t know God and that He is passionate about people coming to repentance and that is the whole reason for His message.) my heart ached at the condition of our land. And so I pray that we will HEAR GOD today. That we will not stiffen our necks and harden our hearts because He longs to show mercy (Isaiah 30:18) and His mercy triumphs over his judgement. (James 2:13) But only if there is repentance and humble honoring of Him and His ways. ( Jeremiah 7:5-7)


Dear Lord, help us humble ourselves before You, stop our word wars, and our prideful name-calling, and get on our knees to seek your good favor upon us. O Merciful God, hear the prayers of your people who listen to you pleading for repentance in our land in our day. 


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