Exodus 19
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Exodus 19:5-6
Moses is up on Mount Sinai with God and God is beginning to make His covenant with His people. God says that the people of Israel have seen what He can do. They have seen His power and His ability to deliver them, and now He is making them a promise. He is saying, all the earth is mine, indicating that He is in control and determines what is brought to the people. The MacArthur Bible commentary says that the divine blessings to the people include "belonging especially to the Lord, representing Him in the earth, and being set apart to Him for His purposes."
Thinking about this promise, it is really simple. God is saying, you have seen what I do, you know that I have delivered you, so trust that I will make the best path for you. Keep my covenant and these blessings will follow. All of the blessings are related to our relationship with God, the way that we interact with Him, and the way that we feel when it comes to our relationship with Him. They are all indicative of a close relationship. All God wants us to do is to listen to Him, to really hear what He has to say. The Bible often says "so the people may hear," and I believe this is said so many times because so often we are not willing to hear. We are so caught up in our day to day, so caught up in what we think, so distracted by the ways of this world, that we are not able to hear God or stay close to Him. All He wishes is that we would hear Him, because if we could hear, it is my belief that we would be more likely to follow. If we could hear God as loud as we hear our own thoughts, I bet we would be more likely to follow.
So my thought is, how do we make the voice of God louder? We know what He has done. We know that He will deliver us, that He makes us promises, and that He will bless us if we keep those promises. All we have to do is hear. To make His voice louder, I think it starts with reading the word and it starts with silence. My response is to spend a little bit more time in silence, a little bit more time doing nothing, a little bit more time just in peace and then surrender.
