Learning to Listen

Oh, here is the secret of becoming much like God

by remaining long alone with God.

If you won't stay long with Him, 

you won't be much like Him.

R. A. Torrey "The Power of Prayer"

from January 22, The Listening Heart

On January 1, 2014, I declared my word for the year to be Listen. (It really wasn't that dramatic. I simply wrote it on paper . . . and on my heart.) Then as I was searching for a new devotional for the year, I "just happened" to see that my friend Judy Gordon Morrow had a new release called The Listening Heart. 

So I listened. I ordered the book immediately.

The book was on backorder at Christian Book, my first stop for Christian books (shameless plug*, but true), so I just received it yesterday. This morning, as I dug in, I was really blown away. 

I was amazed to learn that this book is purely organic—more than that, even. "Every word in this book was penned while on my knees in prayer," Judy tells us in the intro (read it here), and she's not joking.

She goes on to explain that this book was never intended to be a book; it is compiled from her daily prayer journals—twelve years worth condensed into one—in which she wrote not only her prayer requests, but God's response to her.

Handwritten, on her knees, in the presence of God.

This is a book I want to read.

As she explains, 

In today's culture God has been so misconstrued, and He entrusts us with the privilege and joy of being His light and love, shining with the truth of who He is—the God who loves beyond measure, forgives beyond reason, and helps beyond imagining. 

This is a God I want to know better. And I can only hear Him when I listen.

You can read a sample of The Listening Heart here and buy it here.

*I'm an Affiliate with Christian Books, meaning that I get a teeny percent if you order a book through a link I post. Since they almost always have the lowest prices on the books I recommend, I call that a win-win. :)