Recently I asked a friend, “What’s God been speaking to you lately, in your times of Bible reading and prayer?”  I asked this question because I’ve found that this is such an important question for all of us to regularly ask ourselves and each other.

In Deuteronomy 8:3, Moses reminded the children of Israel that God  “humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna . . . to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

To help me with this I’ve started doing three important things as part of my quiet time:

First, I’ve started making a standard part of my Bible reading, time to pause every few verses to ask the Lord, “Is there anything in these verses that you want to speak to me about?” That helps me focus on listening for His voice. In this way the written Word comes alive.

The second thing I’ve started doing regularly, during my quiet time is to set aside time to dwell on anything that Jesus speaks to me about. It’s one thing to have an insight from Scripture. It’s another thing to dwell on what God is saying and allow it to soak deep into your heart.

A few days ago I was praying about an important decision that I needed to make, and suddenly I heard the phrase “Don’t be like the mule that needs to be controlled by a bit and a bridle”. At first it wasn’t the sort of a thing I was hoping to hear, but I decided to search on google to help me find the passage.

It led me to Psalm 32:9.  As I read the surrounding verses, I was overcome by God’s kindness in speaking to me. He reassured me “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” (vs.8) And then he challenged me to not wait until a crises drew me to him like a bit and bridle, but to regularly, willingly to come to him because of our relationship (vs.9).

As you can imagine these were words of life to me, and so I spent a good amount of time resting in God’s presence, allowing them to soak into my heart.

And then I did the third thing that has been helpful to me lately: I took time to write down in my journal what God had spoken to me. I am starting to realize that the things God speaks to me are precious, and I need to write them down so that I can revisit them from time to time.

WHAT HAS GOD SPOKEN TO YOU LATELY FROM HIS WORD?

TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO DWELL ON WHAT HE SAID – THESE WORDS ARE LIFE

TAKE THE TIME TO WRITE DOWN THE WORDS HE HAS SPOKEN TO YOU RECENTLY, AND THEN REVISIT THEM IN THE NEXT MONTH OR SO