For years I have used, in my praying times, Dallas Willard's Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional.
Here's today's entry.
EXPECTANT AND ALERT
Happy is the one who listens to me,
watching daily at my gates,
waiting beside my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the LORD.
Proverbs 8:34-35 NRSV
James Dobson has given some of the best practical advice I have heard on how someone who wants the will of God and who has a basically correct understanding of it should proceed. On a radio broadcast he once described how he does it himself: “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’” Such waiting is not empty, but expectant and alert.
The simplicity of this should not mislead us. When we are in a proper, well-functioning relationship with God, this is exactly what we are to do. And then we are, as Dobson says, to listen. This means that we should pay a special kind of attention both to what is going on within us and to our surrounding circumstances.
