God gives some a special gift.

This gift allows the one possessing it to tame or train an animal using non-threatening body language and gentle words rather than reliance on physical contact.

Those who possess this gift are known as “whisperers”. Within them lays an intuition and heart that understands at an unusual level.

In 1998, a movie was released that depicts this perfectly. The movie was The Horse Whisperer. In it, a young adolescent girl and her horse are seriously injured in an accident. Both the girl and the horse have been deeply traumatized by their own injuries as well as by the death of the girl’s friend who had been also riding alongside them.

The girl’s physical injuries are significant, but the internal damage to her heart and spirit are even more severe. Her beloved horse has such grave injuries; the veterinarian believes the horse needs to be “put down”. Not only is the horse physically wounded, but also he is like his rider, wounded within his heart and personality.

It becomes clear to the mother of the girl that her healing is tied to that of the horse. This leads her to search for a horse whisperer that can bring healing to both the horse and her daughter.

As the movie unfolds, the gifting of the horse whisperer is tested and fascinating to behold. Little by little he intuitively uses his gifts to begin to bring the horse to a greater level of wholeness, but the girl’s heart takes longer to heal. The trauma shared by the girl and the horse creates a fear that overwhelms each of them in their relationship with each other.

I never fail to be touched by the story as it unfolds on the screen.

When I was still working, I met with a woman whose life had been shattered by a car accident. One of the tools we used to help her face the accident was this movie, shown in very little segments. Not only had her body been traumatized, but also her heart and her spirit.

Many of us may have seen the movie or heard of other whisperers with various animals.

The truth is that many of us, humans, have been wounded and traumatized. What about us? Are we in need of such a whisperer as well to gently tend to our hearts and spirits?

I think so.

Jesus gives us a model of what that might look like. He saw the wound. He heard the words, but He heard beyond what He saw and heard. He looked deeply into the heart and spirit of the person and saw what others missed.

Did Jesus have discernment beyond any we have ever seen? Of course He did, but there was something else perhaps.

Jesus had a God-listening heart!

He was in communion with His Father at a level few of us can imagine. The Father who made each person and knew each one at a depth no one else could know surely spoke to His heart and revealed all to Him.

Because of that, His words were never trite, superficial, filled with religious prattle, or inconsequential.

The ordinary men He called to be His disciples appeared pale by comparison, especially at the outset. But over time after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we begin to see a change in them. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit begins to train them to see beyond what is clearly in front of them, to have faith for what they could not believe on their own.

Maybe they were developing God-listening hearts. I think the Lord was fine-tuning their listening so they could be more like Him. Perhaps that was central to what His Kingdom was and is to look like while we occupy waiting for Him.

In this world of self-centeredness, frenetic activity, and quick fix solutions, what could serve as a more phenomenal witness of Christ within us than to be one with a God-listening heart?

I think a God-listening heart hears differently because it hears not only what is spoken by the person or seen in the person, but also what is left unsaid or only touched upon.

To respond to that which the God-listening heart reveals is perhaps the greatest love gift any of us can receive. And such love transforms and heals, comforts and grants courage in the face of trials.

Do I have a God-listening heart?

Do you?

Jesus is not physically here, but He is inside of us. I think He is calling us to have such a heart as His. Such a heart hears the checkout clerk at the grocery store differently, hears the seemingly casual conversation with the neighbor more astutely, and hears the heart of a friend when few words were spoken.

Are you a whisperer?

Let Jesus develop a God-listening heart within you and watch how He loves through you!

It happens so easily to us…

Sometimes it can happen when we are enjoying coffee with a friend. Conversation is flowing back and forth and then our friend hesitates and doesn’t continue with where the conversation was headed. The unfinished communication can leave us hanging and wondering. If we know the person well, we may ask about it but often we will not take that risk and later we start to fill in the empty spots in that part of the conversation with various speculations.

It can happen when we sent a note to someone and there is no response. The silence leaves us wondering if the note arrived, struck the wrong tone, or any number of other thoughts that might crop up. We are ripe for doubts about the relationship and whether or not we matter or are valued by the other person. Depending on what we do next determines whether we draw a little line in our hearts that make us less open to the person in the future.

There was a time not so many years ago when the pace of life was slower. Friends would “sit a spell” and visit on front porches over iced tea or lemonade. The fine art of writing letters gave opportunities to express yourself in depth without interruption. Back then even the handwriting and the paper used gave us a sense of the person and we often saved the letters to reread when we felt a need to reconnect with the other person’s heart or thoughts. Those were the “good old days.” But invention and options changed and before we could even catch up, we were moving from a phone that hung on the wall in our kitchens to a phone we could hold in our hand that could connect us to the world in seconds.

Communication became quicker and easier, but it wasn’t necessarily better. We started to catch up with each other in sound bites with abbreviations that not everyone knew. There was more and more room for misunderstanding and temptations to fill in the blanks of incomplete sound bites.

Be honest – how do you react when you send a text message or video clip and get no response?

Incomplete communication or silence when we have reached out stirs up our inadequacies and offers us lots of space to start having doubts. And it doesn’t just happen in personal relationships. It happens in our various groups and organizations, when we watch or listen to news of any kind, and even in our ministry connections. We start to fill in those empty spots with our own questions, uncertainties, and disappointments.

And it can happen in our relationship with the Lord as well.

“While many sounds can hurt our ears, I think silence is the most painful because it can hurt our hearts. In the silence, we are tempted to fill in the blanks in our life, our future, and our relationship with God. And that’s dangerous. In the silence, we are tempted with doubt and fear, and, worst of all, we may resort to godlessness that sprouts from trying to make things happen on our own. Meanwhile, we’re prone to make agreements that are not founded in truth. Thoughts like God is not good, God is not trustworthy, and God does not care sink into our souls. Like a barbed hook, they don’t leave easily. Once the wound is inflicted and the hook ensnared, the infection of disappointment and disillusionment sets in. Before we know what has happened, anger surfaces, followed by guilt. In an effort to handle the guilt, anger, disillusionment, and disappointment, we draw a line. After all, lines are simple. Lines are straightforward. Lines make us feel safe.”

Margaret Feinberg in The Sacred Echo

It can and does happen in potentially any and all relationships. Trust erodes and the next attempt at interaction comes from a little distance and as a result adds to the dissatisfaction and the gap widens and the line gets reinforced and with it a callus starts to form on our hearts.

We become self-protective. We decide it is better not to pray so we aren’t disappointed more than we already are.

“I won’t ask God for anything he won’t give.”

“I won’t ask God for anything too specific.”

“I won’t ask God for anything too personal. Too meaningful. Too miraculous.”

“That way, neither God nor I have to cross the line. The line of self-protection works perfectly, except for one little problem: whenever we draw a line with God it’s as if something inside of us dies.”

Margaret Feinberg in The Sacred Echo

If the habit continues as it can easily do, we can find ourselves in a very dry and desolate place. We tend to isolate ourselves from others as the process is occurring and then lament that no one cares about us. We don’t reach out to others as we once did. We skip going to the group gatherings we used to attend. We sit by ourselves in a concert or congregation and each time we make those choices, we die a bit more inside and our hearts become more callused and can harden as well.

It’s not unique to this time and place. We see that many like David or Elijah believed they were alone, and God had deserted them along with everyone else.

The good news is that God continues to try to reach our hearts.

“…when we draw lines with God, he does not draw them with us. He is committed to breaking us out of our imprisoned thinking and renewing our minds and hearts and spirits with the truth. God wants to set us free and often he will use others to do it.”

“He wants to erase the lines, even the hidden ones, and bring redemption and restoration. No place is off limits for God. No hurt, pain, or disappointment is beyond his healing power.”

Margaret Feinberg in The Sacred Echo

That is truly good news, but there is another piece we need to recognize as well. If we drew lines that resulted in our hearts that made them callused or hardened, He longs for us to own that truth, confess that, and repent of shutting Him out. Scripture makes clear that He will pursue us, but He will not knock down the door to our hearts. Only we can open them to the Shepherd’s gentle knock.

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;

    therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

    Blessed are all who wait for him!”

Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)

My favorite form of exercise is probably walking. I love to do it alone many times so I can take in all of God’s creation around me without distraction. I notice so many things I miss when my ears, eyes, and thoughts are wrapped up in my day-to-day living activities and concerns. I often go without music plugged into my ears so I don’t miss the sounds of the birds, the breeze, or the Lord’s whispers. Sometimes He wants to point out something to me and I would never want to miss it!

Other times I love walking with a family member or friend. It’s an opportunity to talk without interruptions from electronic devices and assorted other things.

Walks with several of my grandchildren would top the list of some of my favorite memories. It’s given each of us time to get to know one another in unique ways as we have shared. One of those times was a photo walk where our youngest granddaughter and I were looking for special evidences of creation to catch a glimpse of through our camera lenses.

My husband has also been a great walking partner often in our years together. I have especially loved times when he has told me the story of the latest book he has been reading. Because he is one who notices details, it has given me the sense of being in the midst of the book with him. One of his best stories was telling me about Undaunted Courage that chronicles the Lewis and Clark expeditions.

Sometimes the walk is solely for the purpose of exercise, but I love the walks that do not have that purposeful stride I am looking to have as I wend my way along a path or neighborhood sidewalk.

But there is another issue of walking I must not neglect and it can be one that I must be purposeful about. It relates to Paul’s words in Ephesians:

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Ephesians 4:1-3 (ESV)

Paul is stating an imperative in these verses. That puts it in the category of being an essential thing, crucial, vitally important, and a command, but what we fail to sometimes consider is what it means to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling.” That requires more intentionality.

Walking in such a manner means that I am looking like Him (or seeking to do so) not only in my words, but also in my actions, attitudes, tone, and posture in all things. After all, Jesus makes clear He represented the Father in his time on earth and was actually showing us the Father.

Am I (are you) showing others Jesus and the Father?

In this tension filled polarized world, how will that look for each of us?

The other words in the passage outline that, don’t they? If I am walking in humility, I am neither boasting nor trying to convey that I am right, my position is the one that clearly is most Christian, or trying to convince you that you are wrong. My social media is filled with postings from brothers and sisters that do not reflect that and I am pulled back to seek the Lord about what I post myself. Does it edify, build up, show love, promote our oneness in Him or does it focus on a position that can be debated and comes from my opinion, preferences, and experiences? We all have those (Me too!), but far too often they separate us; and, the body of Christ grows weaker when we promote them.

Each of us is called to be patient and “bear one another in love” and it is good to have those with whom we share those unfiltered ideas and opinions, but when they do not lead to peace and unity between us, do they result in a walk that is worthy of His calling?

In Paul’s first book to the Thessalonians, in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV) he exhorts the reader again about what walking in a worthy manner would look like:

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV)

In this case, Paul offers commendation for those who are doing it.

Am I?

Are you?

“Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”  

Hebrews 3:13 (NIV)

The admonition, “Don’t Wait Till The Last Minute”, is one we all hear and have heard many times. Those words have come from teachers, parents, friends, spouses, ministry leaders, and so many others along the way including us. It is always sound advice and certainly intended to encourage us to accomplish a task, do well on an assignment, meet a project deadline, think through what we need to pack, and if we heed it, to avoid stress and disappointment in our performance.

Somehow those words often can result in feelings of frustration as well. We may not admit that, but it shows up in the tone of our voice when we respond to it. We do not like to be reminded of things we need to do much of the time. Perhaps it is our pride that anyone would suggest we didn’t have an awareness of the deadline we are facing. Perhaps it is our reluctance to dig into it and set aside the excuses and procrastination that triggers the feelings. Perhaps it is our regret at our commitment to complete it from the beginning. It is a reminder that our time is not our own.

Nevertheless, duties, assignments, projects, and the like are a part of our daily lives and something we cannot avoid. Time. We complain when we are older that we do not have enough of it. We grumble when we are younger that we have too much time on our hands and are bored.

Time is a gift. We spend some of it every day while never knowing what our allotment of time is.

We can feel we have no choice in how we spend it, but that is an illusion. There are duties for each of us, but the things we have committed to whether it is a job, a class, our family, a ministry, or anything else are choices we have made.

Perhaps the greater challenges, however, are the truly important things for which we never receive such an admonition and yet we should remember daily.

What kinds of things should we not wait to do lest we miss an opportunity? Here might be a short list that you can add to:

• Tell those we love that we love them and why (Don’t wait until they are dying.)

• Kiss our children and tell them something positive we noticed about them (Don’t wait! They are growing up so fast and they will hear so many negative things from others in their lives.)

• Notice the world around you and become a good observer so you experience the wonder of creation and places where you may be needed. (Don’t wait to look up at the star-studded sky, smell the flowers you planted weeks ago, notice the neighbor whose steps are slowing.)

• Take time to read and reflect on God’s Word (Don’t wait to discover the words the Lord wants you to hear from Him for that very day.)

Don’t simply add these to your “to do” list, but ask the Lord to help you keep the important ahead of the urgent in each day. It is usually the small things that are remembered by those around us long after we have been with them.

In God’s Word there are many reminders about time and our responsibility to be good stewards of that time. I was reminded of that again as I was reading in Mt. 25:1-13 about the wise and foolish virgins and the return of the Bridegroom. When we see the reminders we can be tempted to chafe again and add to our “to do” list, but I don’t think the Lord is as interested in our “doing” as in our relating to Him, loving Him, and loving one another.

Perhaps the truly important admonition is this: “Don’t wait till the last minute to receive Him, love Him, to love those He has brought into your life.”

If being grafted into Jesus reduces my stress, helps to release me from the entanglement of pride, and brings me rest, what gets in the way of my arriving there tucked in with all the other branches to the vine? I know my identity is first and foremost to come from Him, but there’s the rub. Even though I know that somewhere in that theological construct in my head, do I live as though that is the case?

A long time back in Sunday School I learned the chorus about the wise man building his house upon the rock and the foolish man building his house upon the sand. It provided the foundational principle that all that I am is to be built on Jesus, the rock of my salvation. If that has shaped my identity then rest should not elude me and yet it often did.

Any of us can show ourselves to be sand builders when we compare ourselves to one another or when we try to prove ourselves as somehow more valuable or important as someone else.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote:

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man…It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”

C.S. Lewis

We betray what is happening within us when we care so deeply about what others think of us, how they measure us. I am not sure how any if us develops the habit of comparing ourselves, but I am persuaded that it begins very early before we even have words.

As infants we are compared to a chart of height, weight, and other characteristics that suggests whether we are developing in a healthy fashion or are somehow “less than.”  In childhood play it is not uncommon to hear one child say to another, “I’m stronger than you” or “my bike is faster than yours.” The competition and comparison sounds innocent enough, but reveals we even come into the world stained with such traits in our genetic heritage born in the Garden of Eden when we unwittingly sought to raise ourselves up to be equal with God. The wily serpent struck us where he knew we could not resist.

Putting that character flaw on the cross for good is not easy even when we try. Another place comparison shows up in our adult conversation is when someone says, “I can’t identify with her (or him, or that).” In that moment we demonstrate something about empathy, but we have also made a comparison putting ourselves above or beneath what we have used as the standard of comparison. We have made an arbitrary judgment ranking ourselves somewhere on some obscure set of guidelines.

G. K. Chesterton brings us all up short with these words:

“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure.”

G.K. Chesteron

We can be so susceptible to focusing on ourselves. Some of us have missed it because we thought so little of our physical well being that we run ourselves ragged trying to be what we believe we need to be to gain acceptance, love, or appreciation. It might “look” like we aren’t thinking of ourselves at all, but a closer look underneath often reveals the source of our busy activity. We have defined our identity in something other than Jesus. We are building our resumes and want to be sure ours looks as if we are worth consideration.

But you see, He, Son of God, Jesus, soon coming King of Kings, loved us so much that He pursued us when we were far from Him. He knew we were dust. He knew what He was getting and that even after we turned and accepted His unspeakable gift of grace that we would fall again. Even so, we were worth His consideration because of who He is. And if we are grafted into Him, that settles it, but can we keep our focus on Him?

Hannah Anderson’s words in Humble Roots confirm that:

“When we are consumed with God’s glory, we forget to worry about our own. When our eyes are fixed on Him as the source of all goodness and truth and beauty, we accept that we are not. When we are enamored by His worth and majesty, we can stop being so enamored with ourselves. And fascinatingly, when we seek God’s glory, we’ll be able to appreciate it in people around us. Instead of seeing them as threats to our glory, we will see them as beautiful reflections of His.”

Hannah Anderson

That brings us rest.