Courage to Listen and Obey

And when Joseph awoke,

he did what he was commanded by the angel of the Lord.

In ancient times, people understood that God spoke to them

in a variety of different ways.

Speaking through thoughts, emotions,

conversations, nature, their imagination,

and yes, even through dreams.

In fact, the Scriptures are full of saints

who have listened to God in their dreams.

Jacob with the dream of ascending and descending angels.

The boy Samuel hears God's voice in the night.

Joseph, the patriarch, interprets Pharaoh's dreams.

And of course, today, we hear about Joseph

hearing the angel come to him in the night

and what he is called to do.

The challenge for us as modern-day people,

is that we have so much coming at us, so many voices.

We have a cacophony of voices and messages.

We do not know where or how to listen,

and we certainly do not expect to listen to God.

We do not have that same sense

that God is speaking to us in those direct ways.

We have podcasts, we have videos,

we have endless amount of internet voices,

and that is not even including the television.

They are all different stuff.

So how do we make sense of all that we hear?

In today's gospel,

Joseph hears the angel’s voice in a dream,

and then he gets up and he obeys this dream.

Now, you might say, that is extraordinary.

Well, you see, the difference is that

Joseph expected to hear God.

This is how he would normally hear,

because he was a devout man.

He would expect to hear God

in these variety of different ways.

And so, when he hears the angel speaks to him in his dream,

it is not a big stretch for him then to obey,

because, well, he is a devout man.

He is used to listening to God, and he obeys.

One of the struggles, I think, for us is

we do not hear God speak to us in those ways.

We do not believe that is how God works.

I think a lot of us struggle to hear God's voice at all,

We think God will speak to the religious ones,

the priests, and the nuns,

and maybe a special holy person,

but I am not one of those.

God is not speaking to me.

But you are wrong. You are completely wrong.

God is speaking to you every single day,

maybe even screaming in the silence.

But we do not know how to listen anymore.

We have so many voices coming at us.

We do not know how to discern which ones to hear.

So, I tell you that God is already speaking to you.

I will give you a couple of examples

which will resonate with you.

God is already speaking to you,

and you have let it float on by.

At a time when you are maybe listening to a podcast or something,

and you hear this inside of yourself, you say,

"Oh, I should call such and such.

You know, I have been thinking about that.

My gosh, you are right."

That brings me to, I should call so and so.

That is God speaking to us, and we let it float on by.

We do not pay any attention to it.

Or we are watching something, and we are moved, and we think,

"Oh, you know, I should spend some more time with nature

or with this person."

And we let that thought just float on by, and we ignore it.

Or we come out of our car, and we get to our neighborhood,

and we see that neighbor, and we know they have lost their spouse,

and they are heartbroken.

Immediately, our thought comes to us and says,

"Oh, my gosh, you know, I should really reach out to her.

She is lonely. I should do some shopping for her,

or maybe just sit and listen to her."

And then we let that thought just float on by,

and we do not think any more of it.

See, God is speaking to us all the time.

It is just that we have lost the art of listening.

We need to find a way to pause and to listen to those things.

So, I am going to ask of you three things

to follow the message of what Joseph did,

because what Joseph did was not just hearing.

He listened and obeyed. He obeyed the commandment.

We need to find not only a way to listen, but also to obey.

So, I am going to ask for you to do three things.

One is to expect God to talk to you today.

Look for it, because He is trying to speak to you

in your thoughts, your emotions,

through others, through nature,

maybe through that podcast, that YouTube you are watching.

But He is talking to you some way, shape, or form.

Expect it, because if you expect it, you might hear it.

And when you do hear it, I want you to write it down,

because you are likely to forget.

You are likely to be tempted to move on

to the many other projects that you have going on.

I want you to stop, hear, and write it down.

And then I want you to really obey.

Obey what has happened.

So, hear it, write it down, and then obey,

not just to let it float on by.

To pick up the phone and call that person,

or go visit that person,

or do whatever the Lord is asking.

It will not be a big, massive dream like we are hearing today.

It is going to be something terribly small

and maybe insignificant at first.

And until we do that over and over again, you see,

we will not really know how to let the Lord be with us.

You see, we talk about Emmanuel, God with us,

and He is with us,

but we have stopped paying attention.

We have allowed the busyness of life to carry us away,

to allow things to clutter our mind, our heart.

You see, God is with us, and

He wants us to pay attention.

So, in these last few days before Christmas,

let us expect God to talk to us.

Let us listen, write it down,

and then do what the Lord has asked,

to listen to the messenger of the Lord and obey.

Emmanuel, God is with us.

And when Joseph awoke,

he did what he was commanded by the angel of the Lord.