Tuning In

If you get the chance to watch the film “March of the Penguins”, I highly recommend it! We watched it recently as a family and it was incredibly fascinating to watch how penguins live, feed and build relationships.

After a baby penguin is born, in order for the penguin parent and baby to find each other later, the penguins have to spend time together learning each other’s unique penguin cry. This may not sound particularly amazing – but when you watch later in the program the parent penguins return with food, and you listen to thousands of seemingly identical penguins crying out at full volume in one ear-piercing hungry cry – it’s incredible to watch them find each other and reunite! How they can pick out each other’s cries and recognize their “family” is just an amazing wonder to me.

As I’ve felt the Lord calling me away on my own to spend time with Him in daily intimacy, I’ve been reminded of this moment in the film. No matter where we are at in our walk with the Lord we must never think we can do without time to listen to the Lord. Unless we learn now to tune our ears and hearts to His voice, we’ll struggle in times of uncertainty and insecurity. We’ll also struggle to remain in truth and can easily be led astray by many things – our feelings, our emotions, the enemy and the opinions of others.

It’s so important that we learn to recognize our Father’s voice and that only comes through spending time in relationship with Him, in the quietness of time set apart together. There’s so much in life that the enemy uses to drown out the sweet call of God to “come, spend time with ME”. So many things that numb us into a false sense of security thinking we can do without His voice each day in our lives. Whether it’s the practicalities of life, fear of God, the delusion we’re doing OK on our own – we can easily become distracted from the source of life, truth, reassurance, hope, peace and courage that we so desperately need.

The Lord speaks in many different ways but rarely, I believe, does He shout! Unless we quiet our hearts, laying down all the busyness of our emotions, we may miss what He has to say. We may still think we’re hearing, and can guess His answer, but is that enough when times get hard and confusing? When times get difficult and uncertain we need a deep assurance that we can recognize His voice above all the other commotion (just like the penguins had to) – tuning out all else and concentrating on Him.

As we learn to recognize His voice we’ll learn that His voice isn’t limited to human words and understanding. He doesn’t always desire to give what we might describe as great revelation, profound answers, or writing on the wall. But one thing is for sure, each time we meet and we listen to Him with open, vulnerable hearts – we’ll never fail to be impacted by His presence and that still small voice that says “I’m here”.

Prayer: Lord Jesus I long to grow in relationship with You. Lord I long to hear You and recognize Your voice above all else in my life and this world. I’m tired, Lord, of hearing so much else and missing Your words of life and truth. Lord, I’m sorry for all the things in my life that I put before simply spending time listening to You. Lord, I long to hear Your voice, because Your voice alone is truth. In Jesus’ name, Amen.