Growing Through Challenge - Listening For God's Whispers

Over 40 years ago I started a habit of daily Bible and other Inspirational reading, praying and listening for what God might whisper to my waiting heart. Most of the time I heard and felt nothing. But, once in awhile I would have an insight that was helpful to me as I considered the daily parade of real world circumstances headed my way.

Most of those insights were too soon forgotten…until I got the idea of writing my thoughts down in a notebook. I tried to make it personal, sometimes adding my name to help me feel as though God were saying this to me personally.

With my insights captured, when going through a similar challenge several months or years later, I could page back and reread the insight I had deemed worth writing down all those months or years earlier! This always helped me in that daily context of “life”, and it also helped me to become a more intentional listener for the “Whispers” of God’s insights to me.

Please understand that I am not claiming to have ever heard God’s voice. I never heard God speak aloud to me.

But consider this…if you pray and set aside some time to really listen for God’s leading, shouldn’t you expect something?

My “something” usually took the form of new perspectives beginning to take shape in my mind. As I picked up my notebook and pen and began to write, the ideas began to form more clearly into insights that seemed to warm my heart and make practical sense for my current situation.

The overarching insight I see now as I look back over these four decades of my “heart-scribbles”, is that many things I “knew” with my head, actually took years; sometimes decades to reach all the way down into my heart and life in a way that really did change me…from the inside-out!

My original journal pages show much wear; some spilled coffee and tear stains. I wanted a way to share some of my insights with you, but it would take some editing to make those “heart-scribbles” become coherent to a general audience. We have my best friend, Robert Hollandsworth to thank for pouring over my very personal and private journal notes and editing them into something I felt comfortable sharing with you. My prayer is that something you find here will transcend my circumstances and intersect your personal circumstances in a way that you will find helpful. And…perhaps you will find yourself wanting to pick up pen and paper…and listen.

___Gary Dangerfield