Stop and listen to God’s voice

BARBADOS

Life is so “deafening and noisy” at times that God is not heard: “…sometimes there’s this soft, gentle voice. Do we listen, do we hear? Do we recognise? Are we able to recognise God’s voice from all the noise and clutter that come around us, that come to us? We need to stop and listen to that voice of God.”

Bishop Neil Scantlebury made this impassioned plea in a June 2 video message to faithful.

“We need to listen and hear our family, our grandparents. When last we spent time listening to them? When was the last time we listened to our parents, our brothers and sisters? I know sibling quarrels can indeed be problematic primarily because we not listening to each other. We have to listen. We have to listen to our family. Not just hear them but listen to them,” the bishop said.

He questioned whether persons listen to a mother in pain over her child killed in crime, the drug addict searching for help, or victims of violence and rape and child abuse.

“Do we hear that cry? Or do we just push it off? Not my child, so hey, doesn’t bother me. No, we cannot be like that. We cannot be a society that do not take these cries and allow them to experience relief, help. Do we hear the cries that occurs in domestic abuse? Or even human trafficking? Oftentimes we don’t think these things are heard. We turn a deaf ear at times, we don’t wish to be bothered,” he commented.

He appealed to citizens to listen to the cry of a child who has been bullied, whether at school, home, social media, and needs help.

“They may not want to say anything, but their actions speak volumes. Listen, listen, listen to those who are suicidal, who are on the verge of taking their life, on the verge of taking those pills or on the verge of killing themselves. The sad thing, no one hears their cry for help…. We just can’t keep on going because it does not bother us; because it should bother us,” Bishop Scantlebury said.

He commented that oftentimes we grumble, complain, throw our hands in the air when a “crappy person”, buys a gun and shoots up a school.

“We are outraged, but an aborted child, we don’t say anything…. We are not listening. There are many voices in this world, there are many things that are calling for our attention, are we listening? We can lose family, friends, ourselves, and God in this noisy world that we live in. This is why we need to stop, stop, stop and listen, and in so doing, God will direct us as we listen to His voice, He will bring us to help those who are in need.”

Bishop Scantlebury encouraged all to take five minutes throughout the day, morning, mid-morning, lunch time, afternoon period, to stop and listen to God’s voice and examine “What is God calling me to do?”