Voices

There are many voices clamoring for our attention today.  You hear them from morning until night depending on your situation.  We are constantly bombarded with voices trying to get us to listen.  Some voices we need to pay close attention to and others not so much.  Some people talk but what they say is not what we should be listening to.

But there is one voice we need to be careful to listen to and that is the voice of God’s Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit speaks, it may be a still small voice in our minds, that many times we don’t hear, or we ignore because we don’t recognize it as the voice of the Spirit of God.  Not paying attention to what the Holy Spirit is telling us can be disastrous because He may be warning us of some impending danger that we are not aware of.  I think that I have heard the Lord’s voice on more than one occasion and I am sure there was more than one time I didn’t listen.

I remember one of those times; I was going to take my bicycle to go do a job for a guy that I worked for when I was doing lawns as a business.  Before I left it was impressed on me to wear my helmet, which I never did because I didn’t like wearing them mainly because of two reasons; one, it would mess my hair up and the other was I would look funny, at least that’s what I thought, which was just a form of pride.  To make a long story short I had an accident which landed me in the hospital with many stitches in my head, which could have been avoided if I would have listened to the Holy Spirit instead of letting pride get the best of me.  I may have had the accident, but I think I would have walked away with only some bruises.

This happened to Paul on his missionary journeys, he heard from the Lord on more than one occasion also; it talks about two occasions in Acts 16:6-8 saying this, “Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.”

They were forbidden to go to Asia and preach the Word, by the Holy Spirit, and when they tried to go to Bithynia the Holy Spirit didn’t want them to go there either.  Paul was very obedient and in tune to the Holy Spirit.  Whether the Holy Spirit talked to Paul directly or some other way is not certain, but we know that Paul listened and was obedient.  We don’t know what Paul avoided by not going to Asia or Bithynia, but we do know that the Holy Spirit has our best in mind and Paul knew that also.  Like Paul we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading and we also need to be aware of His voice when He speaks to us, then we need to be obedient to what He is saying, because we don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit.

Have you ignored the Holy Spirit’s voice?  If you have, repent and confess it and ask the Lord to forgive you, and then try to be more sensitive to his voice and then be obedient.  You will feel so much better and the Lord will be pleased with you.  God bless you and have a great day!!  PS don’t forget the thank and praise the Lord.