Recently I was reminded of how important it is to watch and listen. My dog Charlie needed to have major surgery on his knee. After an overnight stay in the hospital, we went home with a battery of pain medications and a page of guidelines for knowing whether a dog has pain. Obviously, Charlie can’t tell me if his knee hurts, so I had to watch him carefully for signs that he needed medication. Is he shaking? Is his tail down? Is he keeping to himself, or making unusual noises? To know how an animal is feeling, we have to really look and listen.
I think watching and listening are skills that God wants us to use with Him too. Yes, He wants us to talk to Him. Be He also wants us to look and listen for His guidance. If we want to be in close relationship with God, we need to watch what happens in our day. We need to listen to the people around us.
One day, my friend Samantha was driving with all four of her young kids in her minivan when it broke down on the road. As she sat there on the shoulder, anxiously wondering what to do, her daughter said, “We should pray.” So my friend said, “Okay, let’s all bow our heads and ask God to help us.” She, her three little girls, and her son all folded their hands while Sam prayed to God to send them help.
She opened her eyes when there was a knock on her window. A man was standing there. She rolled down the window, and he said, “Do you need help?” She said yes. He said he was about to drive right by them, thinking they were just pulled over, but then he saw that they were praying, so he knew he should stop.
Were you watching in that story? Did you see what God did there? My friend prayed for help, and no, God didn’t miraculously start her car engine for her. He sent her help in the form of a man passing by. Yes, the man would have passed by anyway, but it was her prayer that made him stop.
Many times God sends us help in the form of the people around us. And many times, we are the people He sends to help someone else. The man was watching. He saw what the Holy Spirit was showing him and responded to its urging. We can be the answer to someone’s prayer if we keep our eyes and ears open. And we can see miracles around us if we pay attention to what God is doing.
But we have to really watch and listen. Why isn’t it more obvious? Why doesn’t God shout at us so loudly that we can’t fail to hear, or show us so clearly that we can’t fail to see? Would we actually learn, then, to listen and watch? Or would we just go on needing to be shouted at? God doesn’t want to shout at us. He wants us to hear His whisper and watch His gestures. Sometimes this can be really hard; other times it isn’t hard at all.
One day in the grocery store, I found myself stuck. I went into the spaghetti sauce aisle, and I had taken a jar of sauce off the shelf. But then, for no reason I could understand, I found that I was still standing there. I was staring at a jar of clam sauce. Now, this is particularly significant because I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat clams, and I certainly don’t buy clam sauce. So why was I staring at this jar? I had no idea, but I put my spaghetti sauce in my cart and moved on.
In the next aisle over, a man approached me. I had mildly noticed this older gentleman when I came into the store that day. He had been holding a list and talking to another shopper, seemingly asking her directions. This caught my attention, I think, because it’s rare for anyone to ask directions at this store. I’ve been shopping there for twenty years, and it’s the same customers years after year. By now we know where to find what we’re looking for. But this man approached me and asked – you guessed it – do you know where the clam sauce is?
The surprise on my face was soon matched by his own as I described to him in detail: it’s in the next aisle over, a third of the way down, on a shelf about two feet from the floor, a white label with black lettering. “Wow, that’s very specific,” he said. He thanked me and went his way.
Now, I don’t know why it was important that I should tell this man where the clam sauce was. Maybe he had relocated here and was lonely. Maybe his wife was sick or had passed away and he was shopping for himself for the first time. One thing I know for sure is that I never would have known where the clam sauce was if I hadn’t been watching.
It seems that God wanted the man to feel less alone that day in the grocery store, to feel that he was surrounded by help. I got to be part of that help. Like the man who helped my friend on the road, it wasn’t hard for me to see that help was needed. God showed me what I needed to see.
I really believe that, if we dwell in God’s word on a daily basis, we make ourselves open to what He wants us to see and hear. We can choose every day to make ourselves available to God. No, He may not be shouting at us from a distance. But if we move closer to Him, then He becomes easier to hear.
Let’s ask God today to make us better watchers and listeners – to let His Spirit guide us to really hear the needs of the world around us and to see Him at work in all our lives.