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What is something you are really really good at. People recognize you as really knowledgable on this one subject or in this one area of life…. what did it take to get you there? For me? It took a whole lot of caffeine!

In Malcom Gladwells phenomenal best seller “Outliers” he outlined the idea of masters performing a practice routine of 10,000 hours before they became a master. It sounds great, and listen if you want to be great at something you will need to put in the hours… however it falls apart under scrutiny. First off many of the people studied had already put in 1000’s of hours before anyone counted, many were just supremely gifted and only put in 7000 hours, some practiced 30,000 hours and were never masters and some are still practicing and will never be masters… so what gives. Well, truth be told not all people are alike and not all practice is alike. Some can practice 30 minutes and squeeze 30 minutes out of it, and some can squeeze 4 minutes out of it… but many can squeeze 2 hours out of 30 minutes. 

So what does this have to do with hearing Gods voice… well hold on Ruben… the one thing they had in common was that those studied never gave up… they just always practiced… good practice, bad practice, focused practice, brainless practice, long practice, short practice, 2 a day practices, 1 a week practices… they just kept practicing.

Again… you are asking Garth what does this have to do with hearing Gods voice. 

We will get there but be patient. If you are in a giant stadium and there are hundreds of voices and i ask you did you hear Ricks voice? You might say who is Rick? What does  he sound like? What did he say? But if you know Rick personally you will say to me “Hey look around, I hear Rick”. Even in a large noisy crowd we can hear the voices we know. 

Ok so where are we going?

If you really want to hear Gods voice you will read his bible every day (practice… thats right we talking about practice) Read the bible everyday and then practice what you heard him speak to your during your devotional time. (I hate using the term “quiet time” when we are talking about God talking… Did he talk to you?  No, it was my quite time) 

It is really a 1, 2 punch. You read his word, you listen to his voice while you read and pray and then you try to do what you feel he is telling you to do during that time. And then through out the day. 

And it is practice… not just a 1000 hours, not even just 10,000 hours but never ending practice. 

Remember what Hebrews says?

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

This is not talking about Gods spirit speaking to us, it is talking about scripture. We must get into his word to hear his voice, recognize its cutting, its piercing, its sharpness in our lives so that we recognize even more his spoken word in our hearts and minds. 

Practice, we talking about practice… not a game, but practice. 

Again, what does James tell us

James 1:22

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

So apparently we can hear his word, but unless we do his word we are deceiving ourselves. We pray to hear his voice so we can have the answers, but what if we sought to hear his voice so we could do what he says? Right? That would be good….

but we can hear his word and do it… it’s right there in scripture. Lets not waste that opportunity. Practice… we talking about practice… Not an answer, not a formula, but practicing reading his word and hearing his voice.