“That was an eagle”… “Did you hear that kingfisher?…it was that chattering.” Ric and I were taking a walk on our Greenway paths and repeatedly Ric’s voice interrupted my random thoughts and I would strain to hear the birdcall he had heard and identified. However, all I seemed to catch would be the tail end: like an echo. Gradually, I realized that I was nearly deaf to the beauty of the birdsongs, while Ric had begun to tune his ear to hear them and then would research them online in order to be able to identify them. He was constantly listening; waiting for the birdcalls to alert him to what bird was nearby and where he should point the camera.

Having been meditating on James 1:19 “Be quick to listen…” I saw here a great analogy: Since I had not trained my ears to listen for the bird songs, I did not hear them…unless someone else drew my attention to them and instructed me. This is so similar to hearing the voice of God. Many of us have no idea (or we have forgotten) that God is speaking to us by His Spirit. Even if we have had “miracle moments” when God’s voice was loud and clear (see my April 7, 2020 blog post “I’ll Hold You Awhile”), our spiritual ears can become dull or even deaf to the “still small Voice” of God.

Four or five years ago Ric was at Higher Ground for a board meeting and one of the guys was reading his Bible in the early morning. As they conversed, Byron told Ric that he read through the Bible every year and how that had impacted his life. Although Ric and I were involved in church, leading worship and even in ministry, we realized that we had never disciplined ourselves to read the Word every day…together. So, for the last few years we have done just that. Sometimes it has been tedious and I have found my mind wandering…especially through books like Leviticus. However, I think the discipline of “just doing it” has gradually tuned our hearts–teaching us to listen: to more clearly hear.