Today

I want to be a better listener.  Don't get me wrong, I can listen with the best of them.  I've got three kids chanting with regularity, "It's not fair" or "Do I have to?" or "Daddy help!  I can't feel my armpits."  Well, okay, if I were to be honest, I don't listen all the time.  There is the odd time, and I am talking like 1 in 2, where I pretend to be asleep when the kids wake up in the middle of the night with the squirts. 

It's the listening to God that gets a little more difficult.  Especially when it comes to figuring out what God wants me to do.  How do I know what I should plan on doing?  It's seems like that is the point I feel misdirection creeping in.   When I try and decipher the "will of God."  Yes, I believe in vision and goals and feel it is very appropriate to "count the cost before building the tower" but, the big BUT... too often I find myself leaning more heavily on those things than straining to hear God's voice today. So I strain to look into the future anticipating, hoping for, relying on God's provision of something or someone to help me with my decision today.  And more often than not, I wait, I fear, I do nothing.

As I have looked through scripture, I searched for how people were intent on "leaning in" to what God's will was for them.  What struck me, were the exceptions.   The exceptions were individuals knowing all the details.  The pattern was completely different.

Abraham being told to get up and go. No plans for where he was going to stop or what he was going to do. Moses being directed to leave Egypt with a couple million people.
The disciples told to go find a guy in a town, go hop on a boat, take only what you can carry with you.

The discipline each displayed was a listening to God's voice each day.  No matter the risk, no matter the consequence, no matter the foggy details.

As I looked over my life for the past 5 years I noted that there were many times when I let fear, opinion or a 5 year goal direct me more than listening to what God wanted me to do that day.   So sad.  I wonder what incredible mysteries I missed out on.  I wonder what God had in store for me that I never was able to capture.  I wonder. 

May we not only be great listeners but great models of what God is calling us to in this time.   I want to encourage you to be faithful to God today. I am not implying a disregard of future consequences to present decisions, nor to flippantly make a decision only looking at the next 24 hours.   I am encouraging a "leaning in" to what God is saying today.  What is he asking you to do today?