“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27,28).
In the olden days, before refrigerators, people used what were called icehouses to preserve their food.
An icehouse had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In the winter when streams and lakes were frozen over, large blocks of ice were cut out and transported to the icehouses where they were covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.
The story is told of a man who lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched long and hard for it, but could not find it. His fellow workers helped him carefully dig through the wet sawdust looking for the watch, but to no avail.
Later, while everyone else was out to lunch, a small boy who had heard about the lost watch slipped into the icehouse. A few minutes later he emerged with the watch.
Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. “I closed the door,” the boy replied, “I laid down in the sawdust and kept very quiet. Soon I heard the watch ticking.”
We live in a stereo, surround sound world. With all that noise, it’s hard to hear. It’s hard to hear God’s voice speaking to us.
God doesn’t usually yell. He doesn’t usually communicate in thunderbolts or in burning bushes. No. God speaks to us in the gentle whisper of his Word. He speaks to us as we sit quietly in church hearing his Word read to us. He whispers into our ears as we sit quietly in our homes reading our Bibles.
Often the question is not whether God is speaking to us but whether we are taking the time to sit quietly and listen. So turn off the TV, silence your iPhone, and put your child’s video game away. Sit together as a family, listening to God speak to you through his Word.
Through the gentle whisper of his Word, God will convict you and comfort you. Through the gentle whisper of his Word, he will teach you and guide you and give you hope.
Take the time to listen to God gently whisper to you through his Word and then whisper back a gentle and heartfelt “thank you.”
In Pastor Andrew Schroer’s 364 Days of Thanksgiving, you’ll be encouraged to write down one thing you’re grateful for each day of the year. In doing so, you’ll see the many reasons you have to sing new songs of praise to God every day.
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