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I felt as if I was going through the motions of life, but without the joy. “Lord, where is my joy today…. I was walking along a river, and my surroundings were beautiful, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I knew Jesus was there, but I was yearning for something more this day and wasn’t sure what. I felt cantankerous and out of sorts. I just kept walking. All at once, Jesus was on the scene. Activity was going on all around me, but it was as if I was encapsulated in the sweetest air that was almost palpable. I stopped, took a deep breath, and looked up. There, above my head on a bare tree branch, was a lone sparrow. He was hopping around and just stopped when I looked at him, and he looked right back at me. At that moment, I remembered Jesus’ Words in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your Heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (Matthew 6:28 & 10:29)
Honestly, at that moment I had this profound sense that Jesus knew what kind of day I was having, and He was letting me know through this little sparrow just how important I was to Him. Interesting, too, that I was having a woman kind of day. You know, one of those days when you feel totally unattractive. Then He shows me this unattractive little brown bird. And at that moment I saw the sparrow through His eyes, and I actually felt love and was delighted with the little guy. Jesus cared that I was having an out-of-touch kind of day, and He was walking with me through it by sharing this little bird with me.
The way I see it, we have three choices each day, to experience Jesus in this way, in our every-day, get-up, wash-face, eat-breakfast, do-laundry, clean-house kind of day:
♥ Choice 1: When you rise in the morning, at that moment, make a conscious, determined decision that He is present no matter how you “feel.” Don’t assume that because you are feeling a negative emotion, that He isn’t right there. He didn’t say, “I will be with you only on good days,” He said, “I will be with you always.”
♥ Choice 2: Start talking. Yes, acknowledge His presence and start talking to Him. This takes effort. We are so in tune to having a visible person in our presence when we are talking, that it is hard to just start talking to Jesus about just anything. You see, I believe that God created us for His pleasure and companionship. Didn’t He walk and talk with Adam and Eve before the fall? When sin entered in, it cut them off from enjoying God’s daily tangible presence in their lives. So tragic. But then Jesus came to restore the fellowship with God that we were created for. He paid the price for our sins long ago, so that we now have direct access to God through His Son–who is perfect in every way, and He says, “When you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” We can walk and talk with Him now, just like Adam and Eve did. I know this to be true because I do it. So, as an act of your will, start talking. Tell Him how you feel that day. Tell Him your concerns, joys, and about the things you need to surrender to Him and are struggling with. Don’t forget to be thankful and tell Him of your love for Him.
♥ Choice 3: Exercise your faith. Believe He is there, because He is. (In Him we live, and move, and have our very being.) Remember, faith is something you can’t see or feel, but simply must believe because He says it is so. So, keep talking and believing, and this will move you into the realm of His Spirit.
You will be rewarded with a tangible presence of Jesus Himself. This kind of walk doesn’t come overnight. It takes time to develop. But why on earth, if we know this kind of relationship with Him is possible, don’t we want to take the time to press into it? And keep pressing into it until we begin to hear His voice. Yes, He will talk back. You will become more and more able to know it is really Him speaking. You will be conversing with God! He will not let you down.
Most people I know who struggle with this, have a hard time believing it is His voice they hear. He is always talking, we just don’t believe it is Him. Have wildly abandoned faith, friends. Be willing to get outside the box of your doubt and unbelief, and just write down what He says that you think you are making up. That is His voice. It comes as a thought you know you didn’t think.
The Lord constantly speaks to us and gives us His direction. It’s never the Lord who is not speaking, but it’s us who are not hearing. Jesus made some radical statements about hearing His voice in John 10:3-5. He was speaking about Himself as the Shepherd of the sheep and the only way to enter the sheepfold.
The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” (John 10:3-5)
Notice that He said in verse three: His sheep hear His voice. He didn’t say His sheep CAN hear His voice or SHOULD hear His voice. He made the emphatic statement that His sheep DO hear His voice. Most Christians would question the accuracy of that statement since their experiences don’t line up. But it’s not what Jesus said that is wrong; all true believers can and do hear the voice of God; they just don’t recognize what they are hearing as being God’s voice.