We serve a God who speaks.

Growing up, I don’t remember ever hearing that the Lord speaks to His children. Perhaps I did but certainly not enough to ponder or act upon it. I never knew the Lord cared enough to speak to me. He had much bigger problems to solve, I thought. In fact, I am certain that on many days I felt that I was just a big disappointment to Him. I had spent plenty of years running from Him. There were sin-filled years of little faith and much pain. When I finally returned to the Lord, I was just glad to be sitting in His house among His people. I was grateful for the peace of knowing He had saved my life, and I no longer had to run. I didn't understand there could be even more to my walk with the Lord. I did not know that I could hear the Lord’s voice.

It took time to learn that God was my all in all. I had to learn that He was my healer amid immense brokenheartedness. I had to learn He was my source of joy, and that joy was indeed my strength, even when I didn't feel joyful. As time passed, I began to grow in my walk with Him. I read His Word daily and learned that I was a sheep in need of the Good Shepherd.

Consider today’s Scripture. Jesus reminds us that not only does He know us, but we can deeply know Him. We can “hear his voice.” But how? Through the years, I learned to hear the voice of the Lord more clearly through daily reading of His Word, I learned that my daily time spent in His Word taught me His character. I could know Him through Scripture. But I also learned that my daily prayer life would help to facilitate hearing Him. My prayers evolved from simply giving the Lord a list of wants and needs to sitting in His presence and listening to what He may whisper to my heart. He speaks the way He writes.

The more I heard my Good Shepherd, the more I loved Him. I had spent years nursing the wounds of physical abuse, replaying the scars of single parenting, and running from my Savior. But the more I read and the more I prayed, the more I loved the restorer of my soul and the more I healed. As we embark on this journey of learning to hear God's voice, my prayer is for you to understand the character of your Good Shepherd. He is not a distant, uninterested deity but a loving Father who is gentle, kind, and filled with mercy and grace.

Point to Ponder:

• Have there been times when you knew without doubt that the Lord had just given you an instruction? How so? What were the defining characteristics that helped you draw that conclusion?