The Voice...

Good rainy morning to ya.
These warmer mornings are so welcome.

I open our back door and I can hear our little fountain happily bubbling on the back porch. I also hear morning doves cooing in the palm trees and in the bushes. There is not a more comforting and lovely bird sound than a dove cooing. I immediately find myself being taken back in my mind to multiple times in the past years that we have camped down in Big Bend National Park.  The smells of early spring and the doves singing in the morning. So peaceful.

This little Mockingbird, (I think it is a Mockingbird) and a friend of his played in the yard for most of the day yesterday. He was posing on the fence in the sunset light. 

Our backyard is not anything particularly lavish or landscaped.  Here at the end of winter it certainly is not anything really beautiful either. It is outside though and it is where the birds sing and the fountain bubbles and the wind blows through the trees. It is where the gorgeous puffy clouds float by and where my eyes behold the changing light in the sky. It is a place lately where I have been drawn closer to God.

We have a pretty good open sky view in our backyard of sunsets like these below. These shots are from last night as the sun went down. God was really putting on a light show. I'm thankful I was out there to see it.
Sometimes, in those quiet moments He seems closer.
I am learning to sit and just be with Him.
Sit and just listen to Him.

Sure, there was laundry on the table (lots of it) to be folded and dishes in the sink but missing this explosion of light and beauty and creation that was happening out in my backyard would have been so sad.  

We are doing a study in our ladies class called, "Discerning the Voice of God" by Priscilla Shirer.
It is really stretching my thoughts on how I communicate with God and how He communicates and leads us.

Here are some thoughts that really hit me this morning in class:

We are on a battlefield. Satan does not want you to EVER hear God's voice or leading.

If we are struggling with an issue or wanting an answer about something and there seems to be no answer, maybe He hasn't lead you yet because you don't need to know yet. Have faith. Go the course.

If we are going to believe our God...we have to keep believing even when we don't get a quick answer.
We all have strongholds in our life that keep us from hearing the Word of God either through the Holy Spirit or through fellow believers or through His Word.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

If we think hard enough and ask God to reveal...we can see what our strongholds are. Strongholds start inside and fester until they come outside and manifest outwardly. 

In the above verse God says we have weapons to DESTROY the strongholds in our life. His divine power.
I ask myself today... are there strongholds in my life and what are they?

So, on this lovely, rainy day I pray that we hear God more clearly.
I pray that we work to destroy any strongholds in our lives.
I pray that we look more and more like Jesus so that we can be active in the lives of people spreading the Good news of His salvation. 
The Good news of His hope and peace. 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:2