BY STEPHANIE MORENO

The Lord has invited me into this journey of learning who He is as my Creator and also discovering who I am as His creation. This morning the Lord uncovered another way in which He perfectly created me. He said “I created you to listen. I created you with an ear to hear Me in everything. When you are surrounded by silence, I created you to listen to Me. When your day seems to be filled with too much to do, I created you to listen to Me. When chaos surrounds you, I created you to listen to me.” 

A few years ago when the Lord set me on fire for Him, one of the most incredible revelations He gave me is that I have the privilege to hear Him. I would declare over and over: “My sheep hear My voice – I am Your sheep and so I hear Your voice” (John 10:27).  I remember learning to tune into His voice, I would feel so uncertain whether or not I was actually hearing Him. He would give me confirmation after confirmation to affirm that I was in fact hearing Him. Now I am addicted to His voice! I love to sit in His presence and hear what He has to say. But this morning, He was highlighting the difference between hearing Him and listening to Him. 

Definition of hear – perceive with the ear the sound made by (someone or something).

Definition of listen – give one’s attention to a sound.

I can’t help but think of my kids. They hear me all the time asking them and telling them to pick up their rooms, clean up after themselves and to get their chores done BUT they don’t always listen. Their ears hear words being spoken, but they are not always giving their attention to the words to do what they’ve heard. The Lord brought Samuel’s words to mind from 1 Samuel 3:10 “speak, your servant is listening.” The Hebrew word for listening is shema/shama (verb feminine and verb masculine). I can totally geek out over the Hebrew language, because sometimes when it is translated to English we can lose so much of the original meaning. This is one of those words! 

Definition of shema/shama – to hear, to listen, to give attention, to understand, to submit to and to obey.

Shama has such a deeper meaning than merely listening. Samuel is not only saying that he is listening to hear the voice of the Lord. He is declaring that he is hearing, listening, giving his attention, understanding, submitting to AND obeying the Lord. In Hebrew, this is the only word used for obedience…there isn’t a different word for obedience! So listening and obeying go hand in hand. To have the heart posture of listening to the Lord, means we should also have a heart posture of submitting to Him in obedience as well. 

In 1 Samuel 3, the Lord calls out Samuel’s name and prior to knowing what the Lord is going to speak to him, Samuel’s response is I shama You – I am listening and I am hearing, I submit to you Lord, AND I’m going to obey you. There’s a conviction on my heart right now. I have been so in love with hearing the Lord, but I can’t say that my heart posture is always to shama His words. Sometimes I want to understand, prior to obeying. Sometimes I want to know why, prior to obeying. Sometimes I have not committed myself to understanding what He is speaking. Sometimes I have not submitted to His Lordship in the words that He has spoken. Honestly, sometimes I have not given the proper reverence to the fact that the Lord of lords and the King of kings is speaking to me!

The Lord brought this testimony to mind…One cold morning – 14 degrees out – I was driving my daughter to school. We were driving through a road construction area where a bundled up woman in a bright yellow vest was holding a stop/slow sign. Immediately, my heart was overwhelmed with compassion for this lady. I started praying for her, “God bless her and keep her warm.” I heard Him respond “you bless her.” I asked him “how can I bless her?” He said “bring her something warm.” My first thought was “I don’t know how she likes her coffee.” The Lord said “how about hot cocoa?” By this time, I had arrived at the school and was driving through the drop off line. I was thinking about where to get hot cocoa, going back through the road construction traffic and how long it would take. I had my son at home not feeling well and another little one that I needed to get back to so my husband could start work. I was playing the ping pong game in my head of whether or not I should do this? Did I actually hear Him? Do I have time to do this? How would she respond? 

I trusted that God had things taken care of at home and fought the traffic to pick up a hot cocoa and fought the traffic to get back to the road construction area. I pulled off on the side of the road near this lady and jumped out of the car with her hot cocoa in my hand. She started to walk up to me and I started to say “Hey, good morning…” and she dropped her phone. She bent down to pick it up and as she came back up our eyes met and her face was covered in tears. Silently I said, “oh God, this isn’t about hot cocoa, give me Your words.” I opened my mouth and said “I’m a Christian and God told me to bless you with something warm this morning. I feel like He wants you to know that He loves you so much and He wants to show you His love.” With a quavering voice she said, “I’m also a Christian and I have been standing out here for two hours praying nonstop. My son is going to prison.” The Lord led me to bless this broken-hearted woman. I prayed with her and we departed with one of those hugs that you cannot forget.  

The Lord created us to shama Him – to shama Him in the silence, in the busyness and even in the chaos – to live a life led by the Holy Spirit. What would your life look like if you committed to shama Him no matter what? If you committed to hear His voice in all things and to obey Him?

Father, I thank You that You created me to hear Your voice. I ask You to increase my sensitivity to Your Holy Spirit and to give me a heart that will shama you no matter what. In Jesus name, Amen.