As doleful as that sounds, the missed promise of the next verse makes it even worse! "I would soon bring their enemies to their knees and lay a heavy hand upon their persecutors." Reading between the lines, we understand that Israel's failure to listen allowed her enemies to "get away with" persecuting her. If she had listened and obeyed, then God would have quickly quashed the opposition.
This may be a bit of conjecture, but all indications were that if KatieLyn had obeyed God, then her greatest opposition, her own mother, was at the cusp of coming to understand that it was God's will after all. (We will never know now, but it surely looked as though KatieLyn was at the brink of a breakthrough when she turned and ran for home.)
It certainly makes for a startling illustration of WHY it is important to pay attention to a nudge from the Holy Spirit!
For mature Christians, the nudge or whisper to the conscience is not only the most common, but also the most reliable way to hear God. That is because mature believers have developed a relationship over time; they know His voice, and they know to test the voices of impersonators with scripture. They also know that the loud, high-pressured nagging voices almost always belong to the enemy. It is practically a paradox that one of the signs that it's God speaking is that the 'voice' will often be still and small.
But what of those who haven't consistently practiced hearing God? How does a sheep who has not cultivated a close relationship with its shepherd and lacks faith and confidence in hearing God actually hear Him?
The first step is to get one's heart in alignment. Three features in particular ought to be looked at.
1. Passiveness can cause spiritual deafness. When you are passive, non-assertive, or just going through the expected motions, it is hard to hear God. He has promised that those who seek will find. That is conditional—no seeking, no finding; no listening, no hearing. What is more common in religious circles, however, is a seek-for-show without any pursuit. This approach is about as effective as the hunter who looks out the windshield from the climate-controlled cab of his pickup and, not readily seeing any game, drives on to the local diner for breakfast because it is easier to have someone else cook for him than to find his own food. And, of course, he still gets to say that he tried. The remedy is to have an ardent love relationship with your Savior.
2. Pride, often with a topcoat of presumption, will result in spiritual deafness. The Bible is so full of examples of pride hardening hearts, stiffening necks, and stopping up ears that I hardly need to belabor it here. I should mention presumption though. it is the icing on the pride cake. If the enemy can deceive a person into believing that his/her presumption is enlightenment, foresight, astuteness, sophistication, or wisdom, then the layers of pride beneath it all won't show through. This is one of the chief ways that the devil ensnares a person; he gets them to presume they heard God when they were actually listening to devilish sophistry. The remedy is to maintain close communication with your Creator.
3. A deficit of gratitude can make God go silent. Quite often, a person will presume that he is being thankful because he thanks God for his physical possessions. And while that is certainly part of the equation, there are other factors at play as well. Certainly questioning God is disrespectful. (To be clear, I am talking about questioning God—questioning His reasoning, His love, His plan. This is the kind of questioning that goes on when what you really want is to reserved your right to make your own choice rather than immediately obey His decision. I am not talking about questioning in the sense that you accept it but need more information to carry out your part.) The lack of acknowledgement, gratefulness, and responsiveness at the heart level is a subtle accusation against God because you are not recognizing Him for who He is. The remedy is to humble yourself before Him and make corrections to your attitude.
The Lesson
It is a believer's responsibility to stay alert and respond to God's nudges and whispers. It is unlikely that He is going to scream at you, and He most certainly will not do your listening for you.
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