The other day I went to a restaurant and ordered my meal. I put my food down on my table and realized the server only gave me two napkins; two napkins will not do it for me. So I went back to the counter and asked him for a couple more napkins. He was chatting with his co-workers and hearing my request, he grabbed a plentiful amount and handed them over to me. I kindly said, "This is a whole bunch too much." He responded with sarcasm and said, "Well since you said you needed a lot more napkins, I thought..." I paused and smiled, taking just some of the large quantity hecwas handing me and said thank you. I walked back to my table and thought to myself... this was poor customer service. He went on chatting with his co-workers and laughed and giggled. As I ate the food, I prayed in my mind:
"Lord Jesus Christ, teach us to listen to our Father God's voice and not just hear. Let us use the senses we were birthed with and not be disrupted by the side chatter and lies today's world feeds us. Amen."
Then I thought to myself of all the times we have communication errors/breakdowns because we don't take the time to listen, just hear. We condition ourselves to hear because that seems acceptable, but not realistic. Too many times we miss God's blessing for our life because we get so caught up with the side chatter as He calls us by name. And when we lose the blessings, we are asking God, "Why do I not ever get blessed?"
I think about all of today's music. I love music, in fact I have my own personal soundtrack that has been accumulated for 41 years. Yet, I have asked myself too many times, am I lying to myself by just hearing the music or listening to it. Honestly, if we were to listen to many of the lyrics in music we would realize that it totally blocks out the listening process in understanding God's will for our life. The music is great, the beats are amazing, but the lyrics are filled with blasphemy, satanic philosophies, sexual sin and irrelevant topics to keep us away from our faith. What hurts to see is toddlers who can't even speak correctly or have not been taught to pray yet, but are singing the lyrics to sings with explicit language and sexual acts. I don't get it. All I can do is continue praying for our generations to come.
If only we would simply stay still many times and know the voice of God, then perhaps so much of the "why's???" In our life would be answered. I am no one to say anything to anyone when it comes to how to live their life, but what I will say is when I am still, praying, reading His word, listening to praise and worship, positive lyrics, and fellowshiping with Yeshua, my Blessed Mother Mary, the Saints in devotions... I can hear the voice of God... it soothes and assures me that all will be as He planned.
No one is perfect... no one. However, we are all capable of listening, not just hearing.
Dear Yeshua, teach us to listen.
Amen
Mark David Grijalva Peres
