Be Still And Know

Psalm 85:8 I listen carefully to what God the LORD is saying, for he speaks peace to his faithful people. Listening is crucial to every part of life, but that doesn’t mean it is a simple process. It requires a huge amount of thought and care, so it isn’t surprising that courses in listening are widely available these days. There are essentially five stages to the listening process: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering and responding. I am sure the psalmist would have seen this as a good description of what it meant to “listen carefully” to the Lord. It’s possible to hear someone speaking without taking on board anything that they have said, but when you listen, you deliberately receive what they are saying. However, even that isn’t enough. You need to understand the words they are using. Without that, their words are nothing more than sounds. Having understood the words, they need to be evaluated. What exactly was the person trying to say, and how does it apply to you personally? When God spea