It’s that time again. When the outdoor temperature drops below 20 degrees, I trickle water from the faucets in my bathroom. It is on the outside walls and susceptible to freezing.
The cats love this. Freezing cold “wild” water? What’s not to like. Or lick! As soon as I open my bedroom door in the morning, they make a beeline to the bathroom.
Of course, the problem is, this morning I am ready to take a shower. Really ready. And it’s too cold to stand there. “Okay, cats! Time to get out.”
Oh, they hear me. They look up. But they don’t move. Or get out. Or listen. Just keep on licking – Zoey the faucet, Hunter the tub floor.
I try again. And I put some muscle behind my demands, prodding them to move. This earns me an indignant hiss from Hunter.
There is only one thing left to do: I turn on the water.
Problem solved. But they hang around. They lick bath water, too.
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My sheep respond as they hear My voice;
I know them intimately, and they follow Me.
John 10:27 The Voice
I love the Lord. I do. But sometimes I get so involved in my own stuff that I forget to listen. This little lamb wants to do better. I will try to listen and pay attention so that God never has to turn on the water to get through to me!
“We usually hear what we want to hear and turn a deaf ear to everything else.
But remember the package deal?
If we don’t listen to everything God has to say,
we eventually won’t hear anything He has to say.
And we probably need to hear most what we want to hear least.
But this I know for sure: His tone of voice is always loving.
Sometimes it’s tough love in the form of rebuke or discipline,
but it’s loving, nonetheless.”
Mark Batterson, Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God