Learn to Listen with JOY!

            Have you had your Joy Juice today?  I’m sure you have---if you’ve spent time with God in prayer.

            “Prayer is a two-way conversation with God the Father and one of us, his children,” Peter Lord writes in his book Hearing God. “Prayer is one of the primary sources of fellowshiping with our Lord, but we must open our hearts to what he has to say.”

           Do you talk very long on the telephone when you are not sure there is somebody on the other end?  Of course not! You need to hear the other person’s voice to have a meaningful conversation.  So, too, is prayer transformed when it moves from a monologue to a dialogue---when you listen to God speak after you have spoken to him in prayer.

            Someone has wisely said that God gave us two ears and one mouth so we could listen twice as much as we talk.  When we learn to listen to God, prayer is vitalized.  It is valuable in our lives, and it becomes very exciting.

            Let’s evaluate our prayer life.  Is it dull and routine?  For many of us, it may even be nonexistent on some days.  It should be a worshipful experience when we go to God in prayer because we recognize the voice of the One Who loves us supremely.  When our prayer life is a personal exchange with our Father, then it will be overflowing with JOY!

            Drink the Joy Juice that comes from an exciting prayer life and a personal relationship with Jesus.