Stay Curious About His Voice

Tuesday, July 20th, 2021

I think sometimes as Christians, we get bored, we just kind of get into a little lull and we lose our curiosity. We lose our intrigue. We stop asking big questions. We forget to look at the stars of the night and just wonder at the vastness of what's going on. We lose that. I want to encourage us that when we want to hear the voice of the Lord, what we have to learn to protect is our ability to be intrigued, to be curious, to be in awe, and in wonder.
Eric Johnson

TRANSCRIPTION

As a pastor, I interact with lots of people. One of the common questions people ask me is about hearing the voice of God. I don’t know what God’s talking to me about. I don’t know if He’s even talking to me. There are all these questions around just the voice of God. Today I want to just encourage you. I think there are some simple, practical things about how we can begin to hear the voice of God. It’s a unique passage to use for this, but it’s actually found in Exodus 3:1-4. Let me read this passage to you.

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’ So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’

I want to break this down just for a moment. There are sequences here that I don’t want to make a formula out of, but I just want to highlight something that I think is really crucial and important for all of us as we follow Jesus. You’ll notice that Moses is going about his normal day and he sees the burning bush. And if you study the burning bush – I have friends in the Middle East, and they tell me that there is actually a certain bush out in the desert that has a certain combustible nature about it. When the temperature gets to a certain degree, which obviously it gets very hot in the desert, the bushes would be set on fire.

So it was a common occurrence, but I think it’s important. Sometimes the Lord speaks to us through common occurrences. So we have to be mindful of that. But what was different about this? This bush would not be consumed. It was still intact, but yet it was on fire. But notice here that Moses didn’t turn to look at the bush because he heard a voice. He turned to look at the bush because he was curious.

I think personally, one of the ways that we hear the voice of the Lord is that we stay curious. It’s as simple as that, that we’re looking for His voice, that we have this curiosity, this intrigue. I think sometimes as Christians, we get bored, we just kind of get into a little lull and we lose our curiosity. We lose our intrigue. We stop asking big questions. We forget to look at the stars of the night and just wonder at the vastness of what’s going on. We lose that. I want to encourage us that when we want to hear the voice of the Lord, what we have to learn to protect is our ability to be intrigued, to be curious, to be in awe, and in wonder.

So as Moses turned to look because he was curious, it was then the Bible says, “When the Lord saw that Moses turned aside, then He spoke.” So here’s my encouragement to you. Stay curious. Turn aside. And I think you might be surprised at how the Lord actually will speak to you. As you go about your day, I want to encourage you – don’t go about it in a boring way or in a lulling way. Go about it going, “Man, God wants to speak to me. Maybe it’s with something that I see all the time.” And in Moses’ case, it was the burning bush. I want to encourage you, look and stay curious and I think you’ll find out the Lord has been speaking to you. You just need to turn your ear to Him. So I bless you with that. I pray that you begin to hear the voice of the Lord in new ways in the coming days and weeks.