Listening

The sermon today at church was about the story of Mary and Martha, as well as the Amos 8 passage in the lectionary reading.

Our pastor talked about the idea of listening to God. Mary sat at the feet of the Son of God and listened; Martha did not. The people of the Northern Kingdom were to meet a fate at the hands of another country because they had not listened to God.

Do we listen to God? Do we pray, and listen to God? Are we in relationship with God? As our church enters a visioning process, it is important, vitally, that we listen to and for God as he walks among us.

As I listened today, it occurred to me that it is also important that we listen to each other. Wesley called it Christian Conferencing, and described it as a means of grace. Another reason I am blessed to be a Methodist. Sometimes, when God speaks to us, he does it most clearly through someone else. Sometimes, listening for God means listening to the people around you. Sometimes, God's grace is heard, not through prayer, but through attention to other people.

That is the reason, I think, that the first step in our visioning process is to pray, and the second one is to meet one day soon as a church and to share our throughts with each other. God will speak among us.