take note

My daughter and I were alone in the car on our way home today, listening to the radio, blissful and content under clear blue skies when the weather station buzzed its brazen interruption to announce, like it sometimes does, that certain counties might experience flash flooding, tornado, and property damage. The computerized warning system advised seeking immediate shelter.  

We eyed what surrounding clouds we could, estimating whether they appeared dark enough and threatening for our area. They did not look bad as we drove on. I prayed aloud as I usually do when driving with my kids, asking God to intervene and protect, that we would not be afraid or of little faith. 

Nothing happened in our area, thank goodness, but I did keep checking the skies from my kitchen window as low grey clouds rolled over us in their haste to break up from whatever they had been up to earlier. 

When that radio announcement sounds, as sudden and uncomfortable as it may be to our contented life, we listen and take note. When God speaks, do we judge his words worth our time and attention, knowing the heart of the Father is good toward us? There are so many great scriptures to go along with this, but some verses in Hebrews chapter one and two summarize this comparison well:  

"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

"Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away (*let what we've heard slip away). For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him."