By Pastor Don Schatz
Hearing Like Riley
You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud Link
“…he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
John 10:2-4 English Standard Version
My sister phoned from Southern California. They were on their way to Palm Desert. I was in Seattle. She had me on speaker. Their dog, Riley, and I are good buddies. When he heard my voice, he jumped onto the back of the couch to look for me out the window. I love that little guy.
I know Riley is a dog, not a sheep. But his hearing and response to my voice exactly displays Jesus’ point in today’s Scripture. Typically, if we tell folks we hear voices, they suggest therapy. That will never happen if we only hear one voice, and that is the voice of Jesus. We hear Christ’s voice in the Scripture. We hear it in the voices of our Christian family, as they speak the Word into our lives. Attending only to the voice of Jesus is critical when the myriad ‘voices’ of our culture bombard us with a cacophony of sound, of opinions, of suggestions, of enticement, and of supposed authority. The voice of Jesus rings clarion-like through it all. His is the voice to attend to. We trust him. We trust his love, his compassion, his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness and salvation. We trust his leadership for our lives.
The old saying is that a dog is man’s best friend. They are good buddies, to be sure. But Jesus is our best friend. Listen to him today. Listen for him today. Listen like Riley.
Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
