As I sit here I can hear birds outside tweeting their little hearts out. I hear the gentle rumble of a car lazily making its way along the road. I can hear the fan on my computer as it tries hard to cool the processors and other gizmos that make the system work. And that’s it.

We live in a suburban part of town but it’s not especially rural around here. It’s just that the main early morning activity of the day has finished and people have made their way to work, to school or whatever other activities that they have planned for today. The area now relaxes into a gently soporific peacefulness that is conducive to convalescing and doing very little.

What sounds can you hear right now? What activity or inactivity is represented by the cacophony or silence around you? In our busy lives we don’t often stop and listen very often, and take for granted all that is happening around us.

When Moses was preparing the people of Israel to enter the promised land and cross the Jordan river (something he would not do himself) he tried to give them the guidelines and boundaries that they would need as a society. But more than that, he marked them out as special:

Then Moses and the priests, who are Levites, said to all Israel, “Be silent, O Israel, and listen! You have now become the people of the LORD your God. Obey the LORD your God and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today.” 

(Deuteronomy 27:9-10)

 The first thing the people had to do was be silent and listen. This was so important an announcement that they were to stop whatever they were doing and listen to what Moses had to say. They were to give him their full and undivided attention.

Then they were told that they had now become the people of the Lord.

DUM DUM DAAAH!

What a momentous announcement. It wasn’t that previously they had not been God’s people, but this special moment was when they recognised this fact. How do you think they felt?

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 

(1 Peter 2:9-10)

DUM DUM DAAAH!

How do you feel?

My wife says I never listen to her… or something like that!




(last comment is a joke, I think)