GREENEVILLE – Homecoming has arrived at Tusculum University, and church leaders inspired the higher education institution’s leaders with their prayers and best wishes.
Dr. David Smith, pastor of Tusculum Baptist Church, talked about the importance of listening in his remarks at the Pastors Prayer Breakfast.
Tusculum hosted the Pastors Prayer Breakfast Wednesday, Oct. 2, in the Meen Center, with church leaders joining Dr. Greg Nelson, Tusculum’s acting president, to ask for God’s support of the university. Dr. David Smith, pastor of Tusculum Baptist Church, served as the event’s speaker and focused his remarks on the importance of listening.
“I would like for us to think a few minutes about prayer as being listening as much as it is talking to God,” Dr. Smith said. “Prayer is often imbalanced, with us doing more talking and more thinking than listening.”
In his remarks, he discussed Psalm 37 and its fourth verse: “Delight yourself in the Lord; he will give you the desires of your heart.”
“Delighting in the Lord has a lot more to do with listening to God than talking to God,” he said. “I say that because if our delight is really in the Lord, we will very much want to know the desires of his heart. Let him have the first word. We need to use some restraint and wait in quietness.”
Dr. Smith also discussed James 1:19 – “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry.” And he quoted the late Dallas Willard, a professor at the University of Southern California and a pastor: “God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we might listen twice as much as we talk, but even that proportion is far too high on the side of talking.”
At the event’s conclusion, Dr. Nelson offered a prayer, thanking God for constantly helping in difficult times. He noted that God offers wisdom to those who listen and act on that guidance.
“Help us to stop and listen to the messages you give us, help us to recognize the help that you give us and help us to see that we are dependent on you,” he said. “And help us to have the humility to follow when it’s time to follow you so that one day we might be able to see Your glory in all its fullness.”