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Inspirational Article From
Joanne Lowe

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LISTEN WITH YOUR HEART

“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.”

Psalm 66: 16 - 20 King James Version

When we talk to Jesus He listens to us with His heart. Should we do less when our families, our loved ones, our friends and the world talks to us? So often when people are talking to us our minds are on other things and we don’t really hear what they are saying. When people talk to us we not only need to hear them with our ears, we also need to listen to them with our hearts just as Jesus does for us.

Many years ago as I lay underneath that bed in a mental hospital afraid of everyone due to all the abuse that I had suffered, I cried out to God in desperation for His help. He not only heard my cry, He listened to me with His heart of compassion. He lovingly and tenderly put His arms of mercy, grace, understanding, gentleness and forgiveness around me. He felt my pain and He understood my fears.

With tender loving kindness He rescued me and He lifted me up from underneath that bed. I was powerless to come out from under that bed on my own because I was so frightened of being hurt again. Only Jesus could have given me the courage to come out from under that bed. When I came out from under that bed, I sat on the floor facing the wall in the large bathroom that all the ladies used for two weeks. At least, I had come out from under that bed.

It has taken Jesus many years of understanding and patience to reassure me that I can trust Him. He told me that He would protect me and never let anyone beat me again. He understood the fear I had of being hurt again because He was beaten when He was here on earth. He knows how it feels to have people say harsh and critical things about you and to you. We have no greater friend than our precious Saviour. He is a friend beyond compare.

There are so many people around us who are hurting and they are under the bed in their emotions and this includes our spouses, our children, our siblings and our parents. They don’t want anyone to know how much they are hurting so they put on their masks when they get up in the morning and pretend that they are happy. We can’t be happy when we are in the middle of a heartbreaking situation. We always have the joy of Jesus in our hearts if we have confessed our sins and invited Him into our hearts but there will be times when we are unhappy.

Jesus always had joy in His heart when He was here on earth. He knew that He was making His Father happy because He was being obedient to Him. However, I doubt that He was happy when people cursed Him, ridiculed Him, and rejected Him. The tragic thing about this is that He still is being cursed, ridiculed and rejected. How the heart of our precious Saviour must hurt when people say things that are not nice about Him.

Are you listening to your family, to your friends and to a world that is hurting with your heart? More important, are you listening to Jesus with your heart? When He talks to you, do you stop what you are doing and listen or do you continue with what you are doing? If you want Jesus to listen with His heart to you when you talk to Him, then you should give Him the respect of stopping whatever you are doing and listen to Him with your heart when He talks to you. May God forgive us for not giving Jesus the respect and courtesy that He so richly deserves!

Joanne Lowe
November 3, 2007

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