Listening

Many of you know that my husband and I have struggled with fertility for many years. We have several dear friends and family members that pray for us constantly and always let us know how much we mean to them. This alone helps us get through many of our tough times. We have taken a few steps backwards on our journey of conception over the past few months. We are trying to pray for God’s will and just listen.

Listening…if you know me, then you are aware of how difficult this is. I want to share, share, share nonstop with God and everyone!

Rewind a few months…

In February I attended an incredible women’s retreat with some friends from Bunco (Many of them attend Johnsons Ferry Baptist Church). This was such a wonderful experience for me. Christy Nockels was the worship leader and Jan Silvious was the guest speaker. I received an amazing amount of knowledge and peace from both of these women. They really let the Lord use them to server others. I will share more about these two in a future post. I want to share what I learned from Judy Mills’ A Personal Prayer Revolution small group session. Judy was so transparent and honest. It was really wonderful to listen (yes, I sat still and listened) to her thoughts and ideas regarding her intimate relationship with God through prayer. She explained a challenge that she had been given in the past to simply listen instead of talk during her prayer time. She shared the outcome of this challenge, as well as, the difficulty in the beginning of the challenge for herself and others in her Sunday school class. Several different things entered my mind during this session…Are you crazy? No, talking at all?; Wow!; How powerful!; Listening…what a concept!
I know this sounds crazy (or maybe some of you can relate), but when I talk to God I feel like a dump truck just unloading everything I possibly can. Yes, I am aware we are supposed to bring things to the Lord, but listening to Him is also necessary. Judy challenged us to try just listening to the Lord instead of talking for an entire week and record everything that possibly comes into our mind/hearts. I have not actually taken the weekly challenge, but I have stepped away from the “dump truck” prayer and given God more time to speak to me while I simply LISTEN.

During my prayer time I have been trying to give God the opportunity to speak to me while I just listen. A couple of things that have been brought to my attention are patience and fasting. Patience I am working very hard at. I have to say God is AMAZING! He has opened several doors for me that I haven’t asked for and I am just in awe of the outcomes. As for fasting, I would like to read more about it before taking that large step. Have any of you ever fasted or read any material regarding fasting?

I am beginning my drop everything and just LISTEN challenge tomorrow. I will let you know how it’s going in a week.

If you would like to take the challenge here are a few things that Judy mentioned:
· ask for protection before your prayer
· pray with thanks giving
· ask God to speak
· just listen
· journal what you “hear”