On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. Isaiah 62:6

My dog hears the faintest rustle in the grass or little disturbance outside. In fact, her hearing is many times better than mine. Often she will hear things approaching way before I do.

Some people can hear better than others. It is not that their ears are so much better. It is that they’ve trained themselves to pay attention to certain things that others ignore. It’s like a detective who observes something in the smallest details that the rest of us miss.

God sets watchmen spiritually speaking not only to watch but listen for things approaching. We hear the train on the train tracks in the distance way before we can see the train on the horizon. In the same way, we hear the horn on a ship in the fog way before we can make out the shape of the ship. Bu the time it approaches and se see it, we’d better be out of the way.

Certain dogs make good watchdogs because they discern impending danger well before it’s evident to the eye. They also know the sound of their master arriving home, whatever that might look like.

They don’t bark incessantly at every noise, however faint, indiscriminately. They know what to pay attention to.

In the same way God calls us to cancel out all the white noise around us that is part of everyday life and pay attention to that which really matters, good or bad.

The master is coming. Oh, we want to pay attention to the steps of Jesus! We don’t want to mistake Him for an intruder. We want to welcome Him with open arms when He walks through the doors.

God has placed watchman on the walls. All the day and night they shall never be silent (Isaiah 62.6). The Lord is coming. Prepare the way.

When God is up to something, we don’t want to say it’s the devil.

I remember a long time ago when microwaves first came out. When my grandmother first saw it when visiting our home, she exclaimed, “That’s a devil’s thing!” She was uttering a phrase commonly used by Dutch people to describe something amazing! Ironically, it is attributed to the devil.

God does amazing things. When we hear the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, we don’t want to hide from God in between the trees.

Can you discern His presence enough so as to partner with Him? Can you hear His footsteps in the distance? Can you hear the train coming? Can you hear the blowing of the foghorn? Can you hear the Master coming?

What do you hear? Noise canceling devices help sharpen the sound of what we want to capture. Do you hear what you need to hear?

By Ralph Veenstra