Transformational Thought
Throughout God’s Word, He tells and shows us that He does speak and communicate to us. So if we don’t hear Him, it’s because we are not listening. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, I believe they had amazing spiritual radar and a growing spiritual IQ to go along with it. They were very sensitive to the spiritual world. They were spiritually inquisitive during their time walking in the Garden with God. They were in tune with their own spiritual needs. They literally walked with God regularly and heard Him speak to them.
They also didn’t have to deal with any sin, neither their own nor the sins of their parents or those around them. NO BAGGAGE! Along with this heightened spiritual radar, Adam and Eve also had minimal sensitivity, awareness, and need for the physical world and physical needs. They didn’t care about being naked; they experienced no pain; they weren’t hungry or tired. They fully enjoyed awesome spiritual communion with God without interference from their physical or psychological world.
Then their lives experienced a dramatic upheaval. Sin flipped everything inside out, and the priorities flipped upside down. The result was a dulled spiritual radar and IQ. This contrasted with newly found radar that had a heightened awareness, need, and sensitivity to the physical world and their physical needs. For example, instead of being concerned that they were spiritually dead, they were more concerned with their nakedness, ran from God, and experienced physical pain. Psychologically, the shame and guilt of their sin, dealing with pain and adversity, the stress of having kids and providing for them, all became major influences on them and distracted them from their spiritual radar.
Do you think you would never have such an upside down, inside out radar? Well, think about the things that “call” out to us … food, hunger, sex, sleep, illness, physical pain, fatigue, alcohol, drugs, exercise, money, bigger house, more comfortable car, pursuing that adrenaline rush. We are very sensitive towards and aware of these mainly physical and a little bit psychological elements. What about your spiritual radar and IQ? Well, you can fine tune and improve that too, but it takes effort and intentionality. Just as you give time and attention to your physical needs, you need to spend time attending to spiritual elements … fine-tuning that radar.
Start by listening for God. He is always speaking to you in multiple ways: periodically through others, as often as you want through the Holy Bible, and constantly in your circumstances. Don’t let Satan and your flesh distract you. Don’t hyper-focus on the insignificant, “here today- gone tomorrow” material items of this world. Tune your radar … your attentiveness … your focus … to the powerful spiritual world where God resides.
Today, make time to sit quietly in His presence. His most powerful communication is His still, small voice speaking to your spirit. Do not be hurried, for this hurriedness tunes your radar to the physical world and closes your heart to the spiritual world. Whether you tune in to develop, grow, and follow your spiritual radar or you use your physical and emotional radar is your decision, so choose well.
Prayer
Dear Father, I am waiting here quietly in Your presence. Your thoughts are forming silently in the depths of my being. I do not rush this process. I have learned that hurrying keeps my heart closed and stuck to earthly things. You are the Creator of all things. You are the King of the universe. Yet You choose to make Your home in my broken, humiliated, and humbled heart. It is there that You speak to me in holy whispers. I pray Lord that Your Holy Spirit will quiet my mind so I can hear Your still, small voice within me. I pray this in the name of the One who was perfectly tuned in to Your voice, Jesus Christ; and all God’s children say – AMEN!
The Truth
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice… 1 Kings 19:12
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. Psalm 5:3-4
‘For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Matthew 13:15-17
