Hear the Voice of the Father and Believe What we Hear

At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, 

the infant in my womb leaped for joy.

Blessed are you who believed

that what was spoken to you by the Lord

would be fulfilled.

Doctors and scientists believe that

when a child is in utero, in the womb,

they become familiar with

the voice of the mother and the father.

So much so that when they are born,

they recognize the voice of the mother and the father right away.

Many of you who are mothers and fathers

will know that truth in reality.

It is not a surprise then, when we hear in the gospel today

that John the Baptist, who is inside the womb of Elizabeth,

hears the voice of Mary, the mother of the Lord,

and he gives her a big kick.

So much so that she says he “leaps for joy.”

It is not a surprise at all.

It is something very beautiful

that John the Baptist, even in utero,

could recognize the voice of the mother of the Lord.

And that there was a connection even before he was born.

The truth be told is that

if we could spend time with the Lord in quiet prayer,

then we too can come to know the voice of our Lord.

That before we are born into eternal life,

that we, too, can come to know his voice so well,

that as soon as we are born into eternal life,

we will recognize, before we are born into eternal life,

the voice of God, we will recognize our God.

Just like when we are born into this life,

we will recognize the voice of our mother and father

we also believe that our Father in heaven will be recognizable by us.

But that requires us to listen,

to listen to the heartbeat of God in our life.

What that will require of us is to be still,

to slow down and to listen to beyond

or maybe below all the noise of our lives.

To get deeper down to where we can hear

that whispering voice of God so we come to know it.

There is no guarantee what we will hear when we can get quiet,

but I will tell you that unless we try,

we will never rest in the Lord, unless we try.

Now, maybe there is one way!

That is when we get very ill

and we have no choice but to rest

because we do not have anything else we can do.

But I would rather we did not wait for that moment,

and I think you would rather not as well.

The idea is that we come to rest in the Lord

so that we can hear his voice and what he has to say to us.

This is what we have been doing during our Advent series on prayer,

trying to listen to God and then be still and be with God,

and to know that God loves us.

I believe that is the primary message that God will always tell us is

“You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter.”

That is the primary message

that we will hear first and then comes the second,

which I would say is equally as important when we hear that voice,

then we must believe what we have heard.

That is what Mary did and that is what Elizabeth says,

“Blessed are you who believed what was said

by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Mary believed!

She just did not just hear,

she heard and believed.

And so we too must be willing to hear

and then to believe what we hear.

The first thing we will need to hear

and believe is that we are a beloved child of God.

But I think that the message we most often will hear now

is to go share that love with others today.

Not in some future year, not in some future time, but today.

“The love that I give to you,

I ask you to share that with others in your life today.”

There lies the greatest challenge.

In this secular world it is hard to hear the voice of God.

I told the children at school during the week

that when I was growing up, it was much easier to listen

because there were so many less distractions.

For example, there were no computers, no cell phones!

It was shocking for the children to hear

that there were no computers or cell phones.

I know a world without those devices!

But it was not that long ago!

When I grew up, we only had a single phone in the house

and it was a rotary dial and when we got on it,

it was a brief conversation because others might want to use it.

And no privacy on the phone because it was in the hallway

and everyone could hear what you were saying!

There was only one TV and it was black and white!

There were only 3 channels and

there was only 12-14 hours of programming a day

and it literally stopped before midnight.

I know in the USA you all had more options but not much more.

There was no 24-hour channels back then!

Life was so much easier back then

at least from the point of view of distractions.

In my time, we played with other human beings to entertain ourselves!

I know, a strange thing!

But all of this is to say that we had less distractions

from the reality of God in our lives.

It took less effort and energy to connect and hear God.

It was not that we did it better

but it took less effort, especially when it came to seeing God in nature!

We could go outside and hear God speak to us through the elements!

We were not any better at this prayer thing than today

but it was quantifiably easier!

Today, we need to work way harder at hearing the voice of God.

We need to turn off all the devices;

the computer, the TV, the ubiquitous cell phone

with its many other ways to engage from social media to music, etc.

It takes more effort to engage the Lord now!

But the Lord is still trying to speak to us in our hearts,

that has never changed.

All we need to do is slow down and rest in the Lord.

All we need to do is turn off all the devices and listen,

God is there as he always has been.

On top of all of this is this very busy season,

when we have a lot of things on our to-do lists.

I get it, there is a lot to do, really.

From the Christmas cards,

to all the different parties we go to

and all the different presents we need to get.

Can we just for a moment, take a break from it?

It will all be there when we come back.

Take a moment to rest in the Lord

and hear his voice and

become so familiar with his voice that we will know it

and we know what it says to us.

You are my beloved child.

My beloved son or daughter rests in me.

Just like a baby can know the voice of its parent in the womb,

we too can know the voice of our father in heaven

before we are born into eternal life.

Then like Mary we must listen to it and believe what we hear.

We must believe that we are loved by God

and that message changes everything!

Then we go share that love with others.

It is that simple.

That is the very message that we hear at Christmas, the incarnation,

that he became one of us to show us how much God loves us

and to show us the way to be that message in the world.

Let us not make it any more complex.

Let us listen to the voice of our Lord

and believe what we hear

and act on what we believe.

At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, 

the infant in my womb leaped for joy.

Blessed are you who believed

that what was spoken to you by the Lord

would be fulfilled.