COLUMN: Listen for God's voice in your life and respond to it
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Food for Thought by John Sterrett
I was feeling down once while I was in London. I was alone in one of the biggest cities in the world. I was young and didn’t know anybody. And I was growing up and childhood was ending. Adult life lay before me like a great unknown.
One day I saw the following passage from the second chapter of the Old Testament book Song of Solomon pasted on the wall of a tube train I was riding across the city:
“My beloved spake, and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
These words lifted my spirits no end.
Endings are not always sad. Sometimes it’s good to know that all things, like winter, come to an end, including childhood.
A year is divided into seasons, but life can also be thought of as having seasons. Perhaps you are, or have been, in a season of abundance in your life, or perhaps you have just endured a season of difficulty. Perhaps you have enjoyed a season of health, or maybe you have just gone through a season of illness.
The major characteristic about seasons, however, whether they are seasons of the year, or seasons in life, is that they come to an end. This is good.
Seasons of life, however, unlike seasons of the year, do not just progress without regard to what we want. God stands at the threshold of each of life’s seasons and calls us. “Come away”, he says. “Come with me.” If we rise and go with him, we will move into a new season and, whatever it brings, enjoy God’s company and blessing. If we don’t respond to God’s voice, however, we could remain stuck in an endless wintertime. We could stay in a season in which we do not really want to remain.
Is God calling you to change in your life? Do you hear the voice of Jesus in your heart saying: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away”? Remember, the fact that he’s calling you means that you don’t have to face a new season alone. He will go with you. If you hear him, maybe it’s time you responded. A new season could begin at any moment in your life. Listen for God’s voice in your life and consider whatever He says to you as His valentine just for you.
Rev John Sterrett is the minister at St Andrew’s Church of Scotland, Golspie.
