‘Today, If You Will Hear His Voice Do Not Harden Your Hearts’

Toni M. Babcock

The Lord puts a premium on today. 

It’s today we should trust Him, today we should watch and pray, today we are called to trust in His Word and follow in His footsteps (cf. Hebrews 3:15). Why the urgency? — because frankly, we might not hear His Voice tomorrow. 

Every time we neglect to respond to God’s call ‘Today’, our hearts get a little more callous, a little more prone to self-deception while drifting away further from God’s Voice.

Folks might believe the notion we can lead ourselves to the Lord whenever we choose – at a time more convenient for us. 

But the devil is in the sea of assumption that pulls us further away from God. 

We dare not flatter ourselves with thoughts we might be willing to embrace the Lord and trust His Word at a later date, as if God would bow to us and our timing.

On the contrary, Jesus said “No one can come to me, unless the Father who has sent me will draw him, and I shall raise him in the last day.” (John 6:44 CSB). 

We come to God in His time, not ours. 

When we emphasize our free will to choose God whenever we’re ‘ready’ – we forget God has a free will too, and He is free to choose to withdraw His Spirit’s influence on us at any time now or later after repeated rejections.

The prophet Isaiah left us this amazing revelation and encouragement — “Seek the LORD while He may be found; call to Him while he is near. Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the LORD so he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will freely forgive. ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.’ This is the LORD’S declaration. ‘For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:6-9 CSB).

Toni is author of Reflections from the Heart. Contact