Speak, Lord, for Thy Servant Heareth

by Tiffany S.
from Virtuous Daughters, February 2008~Volume 7, Number 11

    I have been reading A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. I highly recommend this challenging book! It definitely stimulates a hunger and thirst to know Jesus! Through this book, the Lord has taught me many important truths, but one of them has been to wait patiently on Him

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One afternoon as I was praying that God would make Himself manifest to me, I was pricked with the thought that sometimes it’s best to just listen. I had spent plenty of time pouring out my desires and hopes to God. I had asked Him to teach me to do His will (Ps. 143:10); but when I was done with my requests, I would just go back to my daily routine. I realized that if I spent the entire prayer time talking, I was not taking time to hear God speak to me. 
    The next day I spent a few minutes in prayer with this sole request: “Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth.” (1 Samuel 3:9) Questions filled my head about various decisions and topics. It was interesting to just listen. I heard birds chirping, my sister’s bubbly voice singing, and something poking around in the woods behind me. Even as I shut out all the distractions, it seemed that the Lord was not manifesting His Person and His will. 
    Ever so gently, the Lord brought this verse to my mind: “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”—Psalm 46:10 I suddenly realized that God knows the big picture, but He does not choose to reveal it all at once to me! For the time, He just wanted me to focus on one thing: He is God! That is a powerful truth that I must grasp to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
    Remember Mary and Martha? Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”—Luke 10:41–42 Quite often we get caught up striving to understand “many things.” God is omniscient and knows more than we do. When our hearts are quieted because we do not know the next step, we are more dependent to listen to and obey His voice. 
    We must learn to take life one day—one moment, rather—at a time. As God reveals His direction to us, we should follow. But in the meantime, let’s just remember to be still and know that He is God!