Listening

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Aug 16, 2024

I recently completed the “Metro Fitness Challenge” at our gym. We had been preparing for the competition for over six weeks. Every Friday our workout consisted of a larger and larger portion of the course. We showed up Saturday morning at 7:00 am to warm up and the first contestants started at 7:30 am. The men’s wave started first, with the competitors two minutes apart. I ended up starting third, behind someone from another class at the gym and a former trainer. The other men followed me at two minute intervals.

The course had three segments.1 The first segment was inside the gym. Each station was 12 repetitions, a 20 second interval, or a certain number of trips down and back. The second set of stations was outside. The third segment was a run around the neighborhood of around 3/4 mile. Near the end, there were several stations and then you ran into the gym and rang the bell to finish.

It ended up being a punishing course outside once the heat started to rise. It took me around 45 minutes to complete the competition. I was happy to ultimately finish in second place. (The winner was a younger man who was in the military.)

Seven years ago, my wife and I went on a trip to France for our 25th anniversary. I had not been exercising for several years due to two consecutive frozen shoulders. It was difficult to raise either arm over my head as a result. Near the end of our trip, we visited the mountain outside of Marseilles where St. Mary Magdalene spent her final years. I wrote about the mountain in my first post here at Abound in Hope.

In the post, I described the climb up the mountain. I did not, however, discuss how difficult the climb was for me. I had not been exercising for years, but my wife had been. As we wound our way up the mountain, taking each long trail and switch-back, I started to need rest breaks. I was winded and struggling. I longed at each turn to find the end! The final portion of the climb involved several long sets of stairs. When we finally reached the top, I was perspiring heavily, winded and (apparently) pale. My heart rate would not come down. My wife thought I was going to have a heart attack and succumb on the spot!

Eventually, things calmed down and I could participate in the tour of the shrine there. We prayed for the intercession of St. Mary Magdalene, enjoyed the views, and headed back down.

My wife and I discussed my fitness (or lack thereof) that evening. It was clear that if we wanted to do these kinds of activities in the future, I would need to start exercising. If not, we would have to avoid doing things that were so strenuous. We left that thread open without any firm decision by me at that point.

After we returned to Virginia, my wife resumed her workouts at the gym. When she went back in for her first workout, the owner of the gym said to her something along the lines of, “Eric should start coming to workout. I am going to be doing a private class on Saturday morning for another guy who has a back injury. With his frozen shoulders, Eric can join us.” My wife had not told one word to Eddie, the owner of the gym, about our trip, the issues climbing up the mountain, or our conversation about my needing to start exercising.

She came home and conveyed the invitation to me. I had known for awhile that if I was going to start working out there, I would need to be “all in.” Eddie also trains professional, college and high school athletes along side the regular adult members. He does not tolerate mediocrity or laziness in his gym. He is also a strong Christian. I heard the Holy Spirit speaking to me in the invitation to start exercising there. I surrendered to the invitation and agreed to start back in.

It was difficult the first month as I was only working out for an hour on Saturday morning and had extreme limitations in the range of motion and strength in my shoulders. I was also seriously out of shape. After the first month, I started going to another gym several times a week to walk on the treadmill. My conditioning gradually improved.

After about three months, Eddie asked me to start coming to a regular class during the day. Over the following years, I gradually moved up to more challenging classes. My range of motion slowly returned to my shoulders. It took years to be able to do pushups normally. Pull ups were impossible for several years. But I have persevered and continued to exercise 3-4 times a week over the intervening years.

Now, seven years after my journey up the mountain in France, I was able to complete the Metro Fitness Challenge over approximately 45 minutes in the summer heat and come in second place ahead of 15 other men (including several high school and college athletes). Thanks be to God!

While I am pretty excited as a 57-year old man to have finished the competition at all, there is a spiritual lesson in this story. The lesson is about listening.

The three of us involved in this life-changing decision were all listening for the Holy Spirit in our lives. Eddie heard the Holy Spirit prompt him to invite me to start working out. He heard the Holy Spirit suggest that he add me to a separate class with the other injured middle aged guy. He responded to these promptings in God’s perfect timing as I returned from our trip and the ordeal on the mountain. My wife spoke to me in the Holy Spirit on our trip about the choices that I would have to make if I wanted to continue to travel and do activities like the climb. She responded to the Holy Spirit’s call for her to pray for my health and fitness. She heard the Holy Spirit in the invitation that was extended to me through her. On my part, God had used the ordeal on the mountain to till the soil and prepare my heart to be willing to commit again to working out. When the invitation was extended, I heard the Holy Spirit in it.

Ultimately, I had to make a decision to act on what I had heard. Listening requires a response. The Lord honored my decision and blessed my efforts over the last seven years with healing and strengthening. There have been other blessings to me, my wife, and people at the gym as the result of our participation in that community. All of that came about as the result of a group of Christians living life in the Spirit and responding to the voice of God. The ripple effects of our listening back in 2017 are continuing even today in 2024. Praise God!

We recently celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus. In the Transfiguration, God the Father spoke from a bright cloud overshadowing Jesus and the three disciples: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”2 This is simple but critical advice: “Listen to him.”

How does one learn to listen to Jesus? A good place to start is simplicity. Simplicity is a good step towards hearing God speaking in our lives because “his communication is with the simple.”3 We can take concrete steps to improve our simplicity by increasing silence in our lives. It is in silence and prayer that we encounter the living God. It is in silence and prayer that we learn to hear and recognize the voice of the Lord.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”4

It is also important that we become intimately familiar with the Scriptures. We have all heard that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”5 We cannot be a follower of Jesus and ignorant of the Bible. Jesus told us that the sheep know the voice of the true shepherd.6 It is in reading and praying with the Word of God that we come to know the voice of the true shepherd, Jesus Christ.

Quiet yourself and learn to listen to the voice of God in your personal prayer time each day. Become familiar with the still small voice of the Holy Spirit speaking in your heart. Meditate on the Word of God. That way, when the Holy Spirit speaks to you in the ordinary circumstances of life, you will recognize His voice.

To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.7

If we are not taking time every day to improve our relationship with God and to become intimately familiar with His voice, we may miss that quiet suggestion from the Holy Spirit that could change someone’s life—or our life—for the better. I pray that you would not miss the opportunity to change someone’s life for the better, in Jesus’ Name! Amen.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Eric A. Welter is an employment lawyer and trial attorney with a long-time devotion to intercessory prayer. He is a Catholic Christian who has been involved with intercessory and healing prayer ministry for over twenty years. The Abound in Hope Ministry website is https://www.aboundinhope.org/ministry.

Eric’s books on prayer are available in paperback or e-book format on amazon.com.

Effective Intercession for Our Loved Ones: Power Tools for Prayer.
(Available on amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.)

Effective Intercession for Ourselves: “Power Tools” for Prayer (Part Two). (Available on amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.)

The first set of stations included the “surge” press, wind bike, stationary bike, switch jumps with dumbbells, heavy sled push, “run rocket” down and back, light sled push, lat pull downs, bench press, back squat, clean and press, landmine rows, bosu ball pull ups, landmine jump press, treadmill. The second set of stations was outside. It included heavy water jug farmer carry, double rope slam, figure 8 runs, medicine ball toss and slam, bear crawl, moving someone holding a football blocking dummy, kettle bell lunge walk. The third segment was a run around the complex neighborhood of around 3/4 mile. Near the end, you had to back pedal up a short hill and run down (6 times). Then you ran several hundred yards around the building and had to run a hill up and down (6 times). After crossing the hill, there was a shuttle run and then a heavy tire flip (6 times). You ran into the gym and rang the bell to finish.

Matt. 17:5. All Bible quotations are from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, unless otherwise noted.

Proverbs 3:32 (Douay-Rheims). I discussed the power tool of simplicity in my first book, Effective Intercession for Our Loved Ones.

Psalm 46:10.

St. Jerome, Church Father and Doctor of the Church. See Catechism of the Catholic Church section 133 (Sacred Scripture in the Life of the Church).

See John 10:4-5.

Psalm 94:8 (Douay-Rheims); see Psalm 95:7-8 (RSV-CE).