The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“Speak, for your servant is listening.”

—1 Samuel 3:10

Have you ever tried to listen to two conversations at the same time?

Once, my niece was talking directly to me while the other adults had a different conversation going.

Part of me wanted to be in both conversations, and eventually this ended in frustration from my niece. “No one is listening to me!” she said.

My first thought was, “I’m listening!” Then I realized that wasn’t true—not really.

I was half–listening, and she could tell.

I wonder how often we do that to God. We’re sort of listening to him, but we also have half an ear on the world’s chatter to make sure we don’t miss anything.

Maybe we really love God and want to hear from him in the same way I truly love my niece and wanted to know what she had to say, but to really hear him, we must shut out the voices of the world. We must focus on his voice to the exclusion of all others.

It’s not easy. The voices of the world are loud. They make us fearful and self–conscious. We’re afraid we’ll miss something vital and get left behind. But the world’s words are never worth missing something the Lord says to us.

And he often speaks in that still, small voice he used with Elijah in 1 Kings 19. He is speaking, but if we only listen to the loudest voice, we’ll often miss what he has to say.

In John 10:27, Jesus says, “My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

Let’s stop half–listening and turn both our ears to hear our good Shepherd as he guides and directs us each day.

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