Ordinary Time 
Pause
There are two steps in the process: first, you must listen, paying attention to what is being shared. Then, you must hear; that means you try to take in all the meaning of what you’ve been listening to, making an effort to understand.
Living in relationship with another requires that you are willing to become vulnerable to the life and experience of another, and care enough to experience it yourself—at least to some small degree.
Listen. God is speaking. Do you hear?
Listen
"But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."
Matthew 13:23
Think
I used to always be jealous of people in school for whom things appeared to come naturally. Be it math, athletics, socializing, etc., it seemed that they just “got” things better than I did.
Now I am sure that my view of them was far from reality, for, as I have learned from many of these folks, they worked hard to get to the point where things looked easy.
Sometimes I think faith is this way as well. While some seem to just “get” it, yielding many fruits of the faith, I suspect that faith is the same as algebra or baseball: it take practice, perseverance, and commitment to make it look natural and easy. While the story of the sower makes it sound as if some people just “get it” when it comes to faith, I believe that we all have the potential to hear, to understand, and to yield more goodness into the world that we could ever imagine.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
Pray
God, I am grateful that you continue to speak into my life and into the world. Give me courage to listen as you intend so that I may have the faith that you hope. Amen.
Go
As you go throughout your day, will you listen? God is speaking and you will be wise to pay attention.
Hear what God is saying. Feel the power of God’s voice and go then wherever you may be directed. There is life abundant within for your journey.
