Chicka, chicka… chicka, chicka… chicka,
chicka… You’re driving down the road, and you suddenly begin to hear a very
strange sound. Chicka, chicka… chicka,
chicka… chicka, chicka…"Hmmm," you think. "It’s probably a stick under the car
that’s rubbing against the road. I’ll take a look when I get home." Chicka, chicka, thud… chicka, chicka, thud…
chicka, chicka, thud… "Oh, dear; there’s another noise. Maybe it’s not a
stick, after all. Maybe I should probably take the car in to the
shop sometime." Chicka, chicka, thud,
eeeee… chicka, chicka, thud, eeeee… chicka, chicka, thud, eeeee… At this
point, if you haven’t already pulled over to the side of the road and called
AAA, you have undoubtedly decided to take the car in to the shop at your first
opportunity so that a trained mechanic can help you figure out what that noise
is! You may not know what it is; but the mechanic will know.
We’ve all
been in that situation at one time or another. We hear a strange sound and we have no idea what it is. If it isn’t the car, it’s
something around the house that’s making a strange noise. I remember when we bought our first refrigerator-freezer that included an ice-maker. The first time the
ice-maker kicked in, my daughter heard the unfamiliar sound and was terrified
that the freezer was getting ready to blow up! Most of the time, we tune out
the sounds that are around us – the clock ticking, the drier running, the
dishwasher cycling. But when a strange sound intrudes, we want to know what it
is. And sometimes, we need some help figuring that out.
The boy Samuel
is a great example (I Samuel 3:1-10). In his case, he didn’t hear an ice-maker;
he heard the voice of God. And he didn’t recognize God’s voice. In fact, he
thought that it was his friend and mentor, the old priest Eli. Three times,
Samuel ran to Eli’s bedroom in the middle of the night, thinking that Eli was
calling him. Twice, Eli opened a sleepy eye and told the boy to go back to bed.
The third time, though, Eli figured out what was going on: it was God calling
to Samuel! How long would Samuel have ignored the voice of God without the help
of Eli? Who knows! Luckily, Eli was right there to help Samuel learn how to
listen.
Do we know
when God is calling to us? It’s harder to hear God these days, because God
doesn’t usually shout out our names in the middle of the night. (And we tend to
wonder about people who say that they heard God that way.) No, God is usually
much more subtle than that. Many people hear God’s voice as a whisper that
breaks into their thoughts. “Hmmm… where did that come from?” they wonder; and
they take a closer look at it. Sometimes, they hear God’s voice in something
that someone else says, maybe just a casual comment; and it rings so true that
they pay attention to it! Or maybe simply it’s a growing conviction that a
certain path is the right one. There are all kinds of ways that God speaks to
us these days, right here, right now. That is so important to our own
denomination that it’s one of our slogans: “God is still speaking!” And if we
don’t recognize God’s voice when God is speaking to us, we risk ignoring the
most important voice in our lives as Christians!
But that
brings up another problem. How in the world do we recognize God’s voice amid
all the other voices in the world that are clamoring for our attention? There are
lots of those voices, all yelling to be heard: Madison Avenue… the
entertainment industry… the sports industry… even our own family and friends.
Now, those can be very good voices, indeed. But they can drown out the voice of
God who is trying to speak to us in God’s own subtle way. We not only need help
recognizing God’s voice when it calls to us; we need help distinguishing it
from all the other voices that fill our lives! Recently, I was sitting on our
deck at home in the early evening with my husband Fred. I was listening to the
cicadas buzzing in the nearby trees, and to the birds chirping as they visited
our array of bird feeders. Suddenly, Fred laughed and said, “Those hummingbirds
are really going at it!” Hummingbirds? I didn’t see any hummingbirds at our
feeder; and I certainly didn’t hear any humming. “They’re in the pine tree,” he
said. “Just listen!” Sure enough, there was a faint but unmistakable hissing
and rustling in the tree. When I looked over the deck railing, I saw them: a
couple of hummingbirds quarreling, darting back and forth, mad as a couple of
wet hens. I know what that sounds like now; but without Fred’s help, I would
have missed the whole thing. It makes me wonder: how often have we missed God’s
voice, just as I had missed the sound of the hummingbirds?
So, how can
we listen for God’s voice calling “Pauline! Ed! Lindsay!”? It begins very
simply: we set apart time to listen. Fifteen minutes a day is a good start. You
might begin by giving thanks for all the good gifts that God has given you.
Then ask God to help you to discern where God has been in your life recently.
Review your day, and ask God: “Where were you in my day? What were you trying
to tell me?” Ask for the ability to hear God’s voice in the days ahead, and for
the ability to discern God’s presence in your life even more fully than you do
now. Then spend a few minutes listening. Empty your mind of both fears and
hopes. Let go of your schedule and ignore all the things on your to-do list and
just listen in the silence. You never know what God might say to you when you
get rid of all the other voices that echo in your life from morning till night!
If you’re
thinking that you should take notes on what I’m saying, don’t worry. All this
will be in the newsletter that is coming out this week, and in much more detail.
All you introverts out there, this will be easier for you than for you
extroverts. So if you want to find a partner to help you, go right ahead. Discuss
it with a trusted friend or family member. There are as many ways to listen for
God as there are people on earth; and God will be only too happy to help you
find your own path to listening to what God has to say to you. It really
doesn’t matter how you do it or when you do it; what matters is that you do it. Our goal is to be able
to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I’m quite sure that God
is ready to speak to every single one of us. The question is: “Are we ready to
listen?”
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