“And having been warned in a dream,
they departed by another way.”
In my retreat series before Christmas
called Atomic Habits of Prayer;
I explained the four stages of prayer
along with the four behavior changes.
One of the areas that I got the most questions on
was on the third style of prayer “Listening to God.”
In fact, I continue to get questions about it.
“Does God really talk to us and if so, how can I hear him?”
The answer to that question is always “yes.”
God is always talking to us always.
And we need to be attentive to that.
Then the question is “Were and how is his speaking to us?
He speaks to us through ordinary, every-day events.
Yes. We can have extraordinary moments
in which we can have a bolt of lightning sort of moment,
but most always, God is speaking to us
in the ordinary events of every-day life.
He speaks to us in creation all the time.
Often times, he is screaming at us through creation,
telling us his will for us and for creation.
He speaks to us through our thoughts, our emotions,
our memories, our imagination, and yes, our dreams.
And that is what we hear today;
these Magi from the East heard God speak to them
in their dreams when they were warned
not to go back the same way they came.
God also spoke to them through a star.
You might say, “Well, ahh, there is an extraordinary moment!
I haven’t had one of those moments of a star light up for me!”
But when was the last time
you looked up into the sky just to look at the stars?
That’s the challenge.
We have to put into context of the lives of the Magi.
The Magi, more than likely, would have been astrologers;
if they navigated or for anyone who traveled back then,
the stars were their Google maps.
They looked up into the sky
and they saw exactly where they needed to be
because the sky was always the same.
At the same time of year, it would always be the same.
They would have known if there was a new star
because they were looking up there all the time.
What we might think is extraordinary
was maybe quite ordinary to them
insofar as they would have been looking up at the sky.
A new star would have been quite ordinary for them
“Well, we need to follow this, this is important.
There is something that has changed here.
There is something new.”
The question then becomes “What is the guiding star in our life?”
God is speaking to us all the time.
He is not going to come to us through a star
because none of us is an astrologer. Right?
He’s not going to come to us through a star
but there is going to be a guiding star somehow.
It is going to be in whatever way our life is;
in the ordinary things of our life:
our thoughts; our imaginations; our emotions.
The colorful analogy I used for how does God speaks to us
was comparing it to how a dog speaks to us.
Does a dog talk to us? Do dogs talk?
Some of you are saying yes; some of you are saying no.
Yeah, they communicate but they do not use words like we do.
For instance, dogs are communicating all the time.
My dog, a German Shepherd, is incredibly communicative.
They’ve got ears up; ears down;
one ear goes one way; one ear goes the other way;
tail up; tail down; hair up; hair down;
stretch forward; stretch backwards.
There are so many things they are communicating.
But it takes time to learn their language.
And even when we learn their language,
we have to be attentive to them.
We have to look and see and know
what is it that they are trying to communicate to us.
There are some obvious ones when they scratch the door,
they want to go out;
but there are other ones that are a little less obvious.
And we need to spend some time
coming to know what a dog is saying
if we want to know what they are communicating.
It is the same way
if we want to understand what God is asking of us,
we need to know God’s language a little bit.
We need to study; be attentive; and watch God in our world.
In our world, not in somebody else’s world.
In our world. Where we are.
In all the messiness of our life, God is speaking to us now.
And there is some guiding star;
some light that is shining and lighting the way for us
but we have to be attentive;
we have to want to hear;
and we have to want to understand.
What is that work?
You have heard me say it a thousand times:
We have to be men and women, boys and girls of prayer;
attentive to what God is saying in all times of our life.
Often when people get sick, we say
“Oh, God’s got my attention now!”
Well, God was speaking to you when you were well also.
God is speaking to us when we are sick and when we are well;
when things are going phenomenally
and when things are going disastrously; and in between.
God is talking to us when we are busy and when we are quiet.
God is always talking to us, but we are the ones who turn away.
We are the ones who are not attentive to the guiding star in our life.
Then what is our work today
as we come to this table to be refreshed and strengthened?
It is to be a little bit keener to see and to understand
what God is communicating to me; to you; today.
He is going to communicate to every one of us in our life
not talking to somebody else.
Sometimes, we might get it through somebody else.
Today, God’s light;
what we call the “Light of Christ” is the light
that guides us, but we have to pay attention to what is a guiding star;
what is the message that God wants us to hear today in our life?
May we be attentive.
May we find a way to be
ever more attentive to God in our life;
to listen carefully;
to see where he is guiding us;
or whatever guiding star there is in our life
to do his will today.
“And having been warned in a dream,
they departed by another way.”
