Listening to God chapter in "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" book

Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,

Listening to God is a very pertinent subject. I think it has to do with the survival and growth of our own faith, of our faith community at Emmanuel, of the Church in the world. It's not easy, in fact it is a struggle, for me even a struggle between writing and trying to listen on this blog, wondering if listening--my own listening, other's listening--is in any way even being accomplished. My faith tells me God cares enough to be listening all the time, am I, are we, growing in listening to Him.

The question yesterday was "Describe a time in which you were praying to hear guidance and were mistaken in what you heard. What were the effects of following that "guidance"? Some time ago I had a clerk's job in a local boutique, just a block away from our house. Actually, there were 3 clerks in the boutique, as I recall, and at some point the owner let me go, discerning accurately that I was the worst saleswoman of the bunch--I am not very persuavsive in trying to get people to buy clothes, I always want them to do what they want to do--and she needed to cut her work force. Within a very short time after that the guy who owned the drycleaners/alternations shop next door asked me to come work for him, as a clerk. The job came so easy. I had heard for a long time that, when you pay attention to hearing God, God Himself makes the increase and life is not too much of a burden, things flow more easily, etc., etc., etc. So I figured this must be God talking and threw my energies and time into the job. It was for $5.00/hour, all under the table, and so forth. He was struggling in his business, trying to figure out how to advertise, etc., etc., etc. Many times the till was not even sufficient to pay me and it was necessary to wait a bit. I can chuckle at myself a bit now because I remember how gung ho I was about the job so that I even took one of his drycleaners catalogues and mailed away for the book "How to train your clerks, written in Korean and English", trying to be the best clerk possible. Anyway, what happened at one point was that he decided to go back to Iraq for a couple of months. I knew, as well as him that I was not capable of taking full care of the drycleaners while he was gone, but it was the manner in which he found and employed a replacement for me that shook me up a bit. He didn't talk to me about it but simply hired the person and she was the one who informed me suddenly one day when she appeared to start work. Suddenly it seemed that a veil had been pulled away and it showed something of a lack of trust, a lack of truthful intimacy, a hurting, this did not seem to feel like God talking. This was an alien unexpected voice of betrayal or something. Had the original offer of the job been God talking after all or had I been mistaken after all? You could say this was just a person and a personal behavior on the part of the owner of the drycleaners but, for me, it became a way of seeing into his relationship with God and with me. He is a Muslim. The result of losing the job was that the direction of using my time flowed once again more immediately into the church activities, Bible studies and so forth. It is in Bible study that we study how God spoke to Abraham and Sarah and Haggai and so forth and so forth and it is in Bible study that I remember Pastor Troike saying how the Muslim faith is a gentle, peaceful faith and also Pastor Maddox continues affirming that. Because I want to believe that so strongly and it is a Voice that shows something better than the kind of stuff that happened between me and the owner of the dry cleaners, I believe I know that the story isn't over yet, there needs to be healing and reconciliation still to come. The owner is gone out of my life, haven't seen him for quite a while, but I wonder if another Muslim man or woman will come into my life and what I have been told at church will eventually become a reality in my relations, a Muslim man or woman, will become a brother or sister in peace and harmony in fact. I wonder if the things I did in relationship with the owner, even things he didn't know about such as purchasing a book to try to learn how to be a better clerk for him, actually impacted upon him in some way that he could hear a "voice" from me, did he hear a Voice or did he hear a voice? And what is he now looking for and listening for from God.???

Listening to God is key, not trivial. What's interesting about this book "How to Pray for Spiritual Growth" is that it sets a person to trying to analyze more, to think and reflect more, to take some time out to put experiences and feelings into words. So many times we get too busy to do that and maybe that actual busyness acts as a barrier in our being able to listen to God for His guidance. Because we don't reflect. The next chapter is on journal keeping.

Thanks for bearing with me today.
God bless,
Sharon