By Os Hillman
March 27
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. . . . My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:14,27).
Tom Fox is a successful financial investment manager who heads up a workplace ministry in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. He used to be troubled when he heard Christians say, "The Lord told me . . . " He certainly had never heard God speak to him like that. "What is different about those people and me?" he wondered. In the book of John, Tom had read that Jesus had said that His sheep hear His voice, but he didn't understand how they could do that. His pursuit to answer that question began his quest to discover how to hear God's voice himself.
Today, Tom realizes that God does speak and that we, as His children, can hear His voice. He has discovered how to hear God's words of guidance in his daily life, which includes the day-to-day operations of his business, and he is teaching others how to hear God's voice as well.
A friend of mine told me a story about an experience he had in Israel that demonstrates how sheep know their shepherd's voice. He and his wife were visiting some of the famous biblical sites when they saw a group of shepherds and their flocks. They watched as three different shepherds put their sheep in the same pen for the night, and they wondered how in the world the shepherds would separate their sheep the next day, since none of them had any identifying marks on them.
My friend got up early the next morning to watch the shepherds gather their sheep. The first shepherd went over to the pen and called out to his sheep. One by one, his sheep (and only his sheep) filed out to follow him. The same thing happened with the other two shepherds. My friend said it was amazing to watch how only the shepherd's sheep followed him while the others remained in the pen--and all because they recognized his voice. What a picture of Jesus' words spoken centuries earlier.
Ask God to help you hear the voice of God--even on the job.
Contact Os Hillman at www.marketplaceleaders.org.