homeschooled By GOD – Lesson 7: Listen Attentively
Lessons Learned in the Classroom of Life
new YEAR, new YOU
January 17th, 2022
Psalm 40:1-3, ‘I waited and waited, and waited some more, for God. At last, He looked; finally, He listened. He lifted me out of the ditch (the slimy pit), pulled me from deep mud. He stood me on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.’
LESSON SEVEN: Listen Attentively
I chuckle to myself sometimes when I consider where all these personal lessons in which God has privately homeschooled me are headed. Walking with the Lord truly is a lifestyle, a lifelong pursuit, as Dr. Stanley terms it, and in that daily process, there are numerous lessons for each of us consistently. But God drew me into His classroom individually, and between just the two of us, He began teaching me some instructions He needed me to fully understand to grow me.
If you’ve been following my series this month on being ‘homeschooled By GOD’, you know already, He began with three instructions: ‘Trust Me. Be obedient. Let go.’ After many, many months, there came another teaching, ‘Just wait.’ Recently, He spoke with a new addition, ‘Seek wholeheartedly.’ Finally, this past month, He supplemented with ‘Listen attentively.’ That’s when I giggled, wondering where this all might lead. Someday, at the end of my life, will I look back on this time in which God has so carefully and kindly homeschooled me? Will I then comprehend why and when He hand-picked these lessons along the way? Will I see His intention and the direction He was leading me in and how He was getting me there?
I heard Him whisper, ‘Listen attentively,’ and I knew right then, this was another instruction He wants me to adhere to daily. It is so easy in this life to tune out any advice, any suggestions that aren’t conducive to easy living or goes against the grain of the world’s idea of success. The world coaches its students to strive for oneself, and wherever you might be going, do so with determination, no matter how or who you must step on to get there. It counsels us to trust our own intuition and listen internally to our gut instincts. The world would guffaw at you or me if we said we were waiting on the Lord and listening to His instruction prior to making decisions or plans, but as a parent we know the value of our children and even grandchildren listening when we have instructions to impart.
Having been a hardheaded child, I recall choosing not to listen to my parent’s directions. I now bear the scars of not listening. Isn’t that one of the ways the Lord gets the attention of His children? by the lessons we learn the hard way? But we sure have a plethora of wisdom to pass on then to our children, and to anyone else who will listen, after a painfully learned truth. My daddy never said, ‘I told you so,’ when my marriage failed to flourish and ended in divorce, but I’m sure he thought it. Not because he didn’t want us to make it but because he knew the brutal cost of not listening and following instructions, and instead choosing your own path, in your own timeframe. It was the same deep pain for me when one of my children went through a divorce, how badly I wished I could take the hurt and go through it instead, but how I knew I couldn’t learn a lesson for someone else, just like my parents couldn’t have learned my lesson for me.
Put it this way, if Jesus, at the age of twelve, lost Himself in the temples, asking questions and learning about God, His Father, growing in wisdom and stature, how much more should we be sitting and listening attentively at the feet of the Great Teacher, soaking up the lessons He has for us to glean along the way?
Remember Mary and Martha? Luke 10:38-42 (TPT), ‘As Jesus and the disciples continued on their journey, they came to a village where a woman welcomed Jesus into her home. Her name was Martha, and she had a sister named Mary. Mary sat down attentively before the Master, absorbing every revelation he shared. But Martha became exasperated with finishing the numerous household chores in preparation for her guests, so she interrupted Jesus and said, “Lord, don’t you think it’s unfair that my sister left me to do all the work by myself? You should tell her to get up and help me.” The Lord answered her, “Martha, my beloved Martha. Why are you upset and troubled, pulled away by all these many distractions? Mary has discovered the one thing most important by choosing to sit at my feet. She is undistracted, and I won’t take this privilege from her.”
In this manner, Jesus calls anything other than choosing to sit at His feet, and I am sure listening attentively to His instructions, distractions. Wow! I guess I may be on to something that I best pursue diligently, and thus avoid, the distractions of this world.
