Becky Thompson - Truth Unchanging: Hearing God Daily in the Midst of Motherhood

Whenever mom friends of mine find the time to read a book, I want to celebrate with them. So lets start there. Look at you! Youre making time to do something for yourself. I hope the room is quiet and youre alone, but the reality is your kids might be climbing all over you as you read this. Who knows, maybe you dropped this book onto your passenger seat and youre reading in the school pickup line. Maybe your kids are napping or were starting the day together before your family wakes up. Or maybe, just maybe, its the end of the day and you have been looking forward to this alone time since about 9:00 a.m.

I dont know what your moment looks like right now, but I am sure of two things: God is with you as you read, and He desires to speak to you in the pages ahead.

So before we go on, we need to do this very important thing together. Okay? Take a deep breath, and then listen. Take in the sounds of your surroundings. Listen to your home. Listen to the room. Listen to the cars outside, the kids playing, the sounds coming from the baby monitor, the TV, the washing machine running in the background. Whatever noise is around you, just listen to it. Ill wait.

Motherhood is often noisy. It might not be insanely noisy all the time, but as moms our lives are rarely silent.

As a matter of fact, unless everyone is asleep, silence is how we usually know that our children are up to no good. When youre a mom, silence isnt golden. Its suspicious.

But in this moment, I dont want you to just focus on the noise around you. We often try to tune it out anyway. I want you to pay careful attention to the noise within you. That noise often goes unaddressed, but the silent roar of our own thoughts can be overwhelming. Its a mental din of to-do lists and anxieties and possible outcomes for every situation were facing. Were making notes of what we need to buy or whom we need to contact or what bill we need to pay. Were wondering if our children are on track developmentally, if theyre okay, and if theyre becoming good people. We are thinking about marriage and money and mothering. Were wondering how to do better in just about every area of our lives.

Our thoughts within us can be just as loud as the noise around us, but they are often harder to silence. So before we continue, I want you to take another deep breath. We are going to quiet our thoughts.

Lets focus our hearts and minds on what God might be speaking to us right now. Lets silence the space within us to make room for the voice of the Lord. Lets pray this simple prayer together.

Mind, focus. Anxieties, go. Heart, open. Lord, come. We desire to meet with You, God. In Jesuss name we come before You. Amen.

Here is some good news before we begin. God wants to speak to His people. Throughout Scripture, God has proven His desire to speak to those He loves. That includes us!

In the beginning, God spoke and formed the world. He spoke to the first man and woman He had created in His image. He taught and led them, and they followed His instructions. Later, when they were separated from Him, His voice pointed to His rescue plan for humanity through the prophets.

God spoke to us through His Son, Jesus, when He came as the Redeemer, making a way for us to have a personal relationship with the Father again. Now the Lord speaks to us through His completed Word and His Holy Spirit, who lives within us, guiding us throughout our lives.

Through Gods written Word we learn to recognize the voice of the Lord and the character and nature of our heavenly Father. As we spend time reading, the Holy Spirit reveals the meaning and application of Gods Truth, found in Scripture, in our lives. But an incredible thing takes place when we spend time listening to the Holy Spirit as we read Gods Word. Our hearts begin to identify Gods voice speaking to us in our daily lives.

Just before Jesus went to the cross, He told His friends in John 16:1214, I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.