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Whispers From the Rooftop
by Jerry Ousley I've never been good at reading lips or hearing whispers. If someone whispered something in my ear all I managed to hear was "shhhwspspspsp." I couldn't understand what was being said. And those moving lips from across the room . . . well, by the time I'd make it over to the person to figure out what they were trying to tell me it would be old news. Once in a youth group Deb and I tried an experiment. She started something in the ear of the person next to her and each one was to whisper it in the ear of the person next to them until it got all the way back around to the last person. What started out as "I wonder how this will turn out when it goes around," turned into something like "I know how this will turn out when it hits the ground!" I've gotten into more trouble trying to rely on what I heard whispered or what I tried to read from someone's lips. I'll get it wrong nearly every time. If you want me to know something private you'd be better off to write it down, get it to me and make me promise to tear it up and swallow it rather than whisper it or lip it. But there is a whisper that I'm pretty good at sometimes and that is the whisper of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I don't have to rely on my aging senses of hearing and sight to get that one. God will tell us things if we'll just listen to Him. The problem is that it is hard to get us still enough to hear His whisper. When we do learn to hear what He is saying an entirely new world is opened to us. He will give us advice we never dreamed of receiving. He will clarify those things that are so mysterious to us. He will warn us when we are about to make the wrong decision about events in our lives. But we've got to learn to listen. Jesus said in Matthew 10:27, "Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and whatever you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops." You see, most of the time what God speaks to us spiritually is worth telling others. He gives us advice that we'd pay thousands of dollars for from a counselor. Sometimes we need a good Christian counselor, but a good Christian counselor will tell you to listen to God. There will come a time when we need to take that good, sound advice from God and share it with others. The Holy Spirit will reveal things to us about ourselves that will not only make us a better person, but when shared at His direction will be solid gold to people. Most of what I share in these messages has been something that God has told me about first, which needed worked on in my own life. What He tells us in the dark the dimly light places in our lives, we are to tell in the light. That means that the good advice He has given us during the times of our trials and the bad times, will be worth sharing when things are better, when we've accomplished some things, gotten a bit of experience under our belts, and learned our lesson. Then we can share them when our spirits are back in the light we've conquered our situation. What He tells us in secret we should one day be able to preach from the housetops for all to understand and benefit from. If God does it for an insignificant nobody like me, He'll certainly do it for you too. I've had a lot of dark times during which God has whispered to me. There have been a lot f times I needed His counsel in secret. So now it's time for me to get out the ladder and climb up on the roof. Care to join me? Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |