The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)
But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.(1 Thessalonians 5:24)
Thought
This is my one hundredth ‘Thought for the day’. You may be wondering how exactly I know this fact, have I been counting them as I went along? The answer is no, I haven’t, but the website where they are uploaded in order for them to appear, does. Each time you publish a new thought it tells you how many you have done, so I know that this one is number one hundred.
I have to say that when David asked me two years ago if I would consider writing a thought for the day I never imagined that two years later and one hundred thoughts later that I would still be doing it. In fact had David asked me if I would consider writing one hundred thoughts I would probably have said no. It would have been far too overwhelming a task. As it is I only ever think about one thought at a time. Until I have written one I rarely think about what the next one will be.
My mum once asked me, what comes first, the thought or the bible passage that I am going to use. The answer is that I nearly always start with the beginnings of the thought. I get an idea that I feel I want to talk about and I try and ponder what God might be asking me to say about it. Sometimes it is easy and the words come readily to me, other times I don’t seem to know what I am going to say. Sometimes I start writing my thought for the day not knowing where it is going to take me or on occasion I have been known to change where I am going half way through. Once I have a germ of a thought I then consider what the bible has to say to me about it and I look for references in the bible that go with my idea and that too will often effect exactly what I will say.
You would think that after writing one hundred thoughts for the day I would be completely relaxed about doing them. But I’m afraid even now I wonder if a thought will come to me. Ideally I’d like to have my initial idea a good few days before I need to write, but that does not often happen and sometimes I have to wait until the very day that I need to write for the idea to emerge. God, through the Holy Spirit has not let me down yet, and I know he never will, but still I question if it will happen. I have learnt that in order to hear promptings from the Spirit I have to listen. I have learnt to look for God speaking to me in the everyday things that happen in my life. I have learnt to see God working in the things that I see or read or hear and the more that I practice listening to him, the easier it does become.
If you feel that you want to hear God more then start by asking him to speak to you and then wait for the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It might be found from a reading in your bible, or it might be the sound of a bird singing or the sight of the sun rising in the morning, God is able to speak to us in so many ways, if only we spend time trying to listen.
Prayer
Lord, help me to listen when you are speaking to me.
Amen
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