Are You A Good Listener?

Hello Friends,

Have you been able to warm up after such cold and chilly wintry days this past week? I don’t know about you, I’m still trying to warm up and I think I have had a mug of hot-chocolate every day….and I even put more blankets on the couch. It has been “down right” cold. However, I did see on the weather channel the other day that we are supposed to experience some warmer temperatures this week: temperatures maybe in the 20s, 30s, and even 40s. It’s going to be a heat wave! But, I think I will keep my t-shirts and shorts in the garage for now. After all, isn’t ole Punxsutawney Phil that will let us know when Spring is coming. So, are you ready for Spring or do you want more snow?

Today, I want to talk to you about listening. Do you any of you like to listen? Do you listen to your parents? Do you listen to your teachers? Do you listen to your friends, your Sunday School Teacher, or even the pastor? Believe it or not, listening is something we need to do, although we may not want to. And, sometimes it’s hard to listen.

When I was about your age, I went to my first Monster Truck show. Before the show began, I got to go down on the dirt covered arena floor, stand next to those ginormous trucks, stand in those huge tires, and meet some of the drivers. When the show began, and those trucks revved up their engines, I couldn’t even hear the announcer. I couldn’t even hear my parents who were sitting next to me. It was so loud. It was hard to hear anything except for the trucks.

Fast forwarding a few years, I got my first drumset. Talking about being loud! When I play my drums, I put on noise cancelling headphones so I can’t hear anything around me; all I can hear is the music that I am playing along too. People would knock on the door, but I couldn’t hear them. My phone would ring, but I couldn’t hear it. My parents would be yelling my name because supper was ready, but I couldn’t hear them. All I could hear was the music and my drums. It was hard to anything.

Reminiscing about those days, I realized that there is a lesson to be learned and shared. There is a lot of noise that happens in our life, and that noise makes it hard to hear everything sometimes. And you know what? Sometimes listening to God can be the same way. We can’t hear Him because of all the noise…

There are a lot of things that make it hard to listen to God. Let me explain… There are people who tell us that God isn’t real. There are people that tell us we don’t ever need to go to church. There are people that tell us we are wrong in the way we worship God. There are TV shows that show kids who believe in God being pushed around. There are TV shows that show us being tough and strong is better than living like God wants us to. Sometimes we hear things and don’t understand them. Then we ignore them and go and play. Sometimes we treat God the same way: He tells us one thing, but we decide to do another as if we weren’t listening to Him. Let me tell you something Jesus said.

Jesus told a story about a farmer who plants his seeds. Some of the seeds fall on hard soil, some in the weeds, and some in good dirt. The farmer won’t get any crop from the seeds in the hard soil. The farmer will only get a little where the weeds are. But where the good dirt is, the seeds will grow big and strong.

Jesus’ disciples were like how we are sometimes: we don’t understand what is being said because we aren’t fully listening. For them it wasn’t a lot of noise but they just didn’t understand what Jesus was saying. They had to ask Jesus what he was talking about and then Jesus told them all about what he was trying to say to them before. Then they understood.

The morale of the story… We need to listen to God. We know that God does exist. We know we are going to a good church. We know we are worshiping God in a way that pleases God. We know that living like God wants us to is the best way to live. And we know that when we don’t understand something we are supposed to ask questions so we understand. When we will really listening to God, we will hear Him above the sounds of Monster Trucks and drums; we will hear Him above all the noise around us; and we will hear Him no matter what is going on in our life.

Today, turn your ears to God and make sure they are turned on because God is speaking to you!

Let us Pray: Dear God, we live in a noisy world. Help us to always listen for you. Remind us to ask questions when we don’t understand what you want. Amen

Your Friend, Holy Spirit!

Lesson Idea Borrowed From: https://sermons4kids.com/sermons/listen