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Just Listen...

I start every morning on the back porch with a cup of coffee and my Bible. Even though I live in the suburbs, there is no shortage of wildlife activity at that time of day (and I'm not talking about the neighborhood party animals dragging themselves home).  While a squirrel and bluejay engage in their daily skirmish on top of the fence, squabbling over whatever tidbit the squirrel has just found, birdsongs fill the trees. Occasionally, one of them will come out his cover and find a perch on a nearby rooftop, so he can maximize his volume well enough to irritate even the soundest sleeping  of all the snoozing teenagers on the block. It's a cheerful setting.

Over the past few weeks, though, my curiosity began to grow. Whenever I heard a bird singing, I would wonder, is that the robin, or the cardinal? Or is it the mockingbird, imitating one or both of them? 

The App Store is a wonderful thing...almost as wonderful as Wikipedia ;)

In the modern style of self-education, then, I was well on my way to being able to identify the various chirps and songs that have become the background music for my morning devotion time. As a musician, the patterns and subtle tones were fascinating. (I'm afraid I have reached a whole new plateau of Nerdism). 

Then, I discovered something amazing. Some of the chirps I thought were from a single bird, because I always heard them together, were actually coming from two birds. The male cardinal sings his call, and the female, from another rooftop or tree, sometimes on the other side of the block, would answer with her call. It was an incredible thing to discover, and it showed me something--I learned something new that had nothing to do with something so narrowly applied as identifying bird calls.

God speaks to our hearts, every day, in much the same way. We only hear chatter, when, really, if we took the trouble to learn a little, we would hear something identifiable and relatable, loud and clear.
People think you're crazy if you say God speaks to you, but how could we possibly claim to have any kind of relationship with Him, if He does not? The truth is, he speaks to us all day long--we just don't hear it, don't understand it, or cannot identify it. Sometimes, like the late-sleeping teenager who rolls over and puts the pillow over his head to drown out the birds, we deliberately shut him out.

In studying the Bible, and learning who God REALLY IS, and who he is to us, we learn to recognize the little things around us that speak His instruction, showing us His ways, telling us of His goodness, and nudging us toward the purpose and path He has mapped out for us. Most of all, He communicates His love to us, through so many things that we miss. If only we would just stop and listen, we would find what we are looking for. Just listen.

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