Before I formed you in the womb I knew and approved of you, and before you were born I separated and set you apart, consecrating you! Jeremiah 1:5 (AMP)
Noise All Around Us – Hearing Series – Part 2
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
God is always speaking. He is a constant communicator.
The problem is how we’re listening and what we're listening for.
We are surrounded by noise. We’ve grown so accustomed to it that we hardly notice the absence of silence. Pure natural silence – which is silence devoid of man-made noise – is on the brink of extinction. There are very few places left in the world where you can sit for longer than an hour and hear nothing but original creation. Airplanes, cars, trucks, cities, factories… their sounds almost cover the entire earth.
When I study, I listen to music. When I’m at home on my own, I like having the TV on in the background. If I can’t sleep at night, again – I either put on the TV or music to try and drown out the noise in my head. Podcasts are on in the car, I make phone calls while I'm cleaning (earphones in)… I subconsciously fill my life with sound.
Do you have a TV? Do you listen to the radio in the car? Podcasts? Two TVs? iPod? Smartphone? Email? Social Media notifications? Then there’s visual noise: clutter, billboards, TV, ads, newspapers, magazines, social media…
We are surrounded by noise. And the absence of silence in our lives has caused us to be somewhat hesitant and afraid of it. We don’t know how to sit still, how to be silent. How to just ‘be’ with someone, no words or sounds, just present. A ‘comfortable silence' if you would.
We’re so used to instant search results on Google; we complain if the wait to see our GP is longer than a week; we can call our banks 24/7, send emails and text messages: communication is instant. And noisy. And cluttered.
When it comes to the moments that we are asking God for direction, we listen out for him as we would listen for a return phone call from our kid's school, or the financial advisor, or the doctor's receptionist.
And we wonder why we can’t hear him?
We pray like we're placing calls, we petition like we're writing a letter to our local government official, we apply for miracles with our faith and good deeds like we would a bank loan. We do our bit, our God does his bit, right? We wait for him to answer, respond or reply… but are often left unsatisfied and confused.
In his book, “Wishful Thinking,” Frederick Buechner said,
“In Hebrew and Greek, the Latin word spiritus originally meant “breath” (as in expire, respiratory, and so on), and breath is what you have when you're alive and don't have when you're dead. Thus spirit = breath = life, the aliveness and power of your life, and to speak of your spirit (or soul) is to speak of the power of life that is in you… God also has a spirit — is Spirit, says the Apostle John (4:24). Thus God is the power of the power of life itself, has breathed and continues to breathe life into his creation. Inspires it.”
Before he exists in loud declarations, he exists in silence. In the breath of life, the breathing out of inexpressible words. Words more felt than heard. Present. Constant. Eternal.
He beats behind, through, and in it all.
And that's where Elijah found him… on a mountain, in a cave in the stillness…
Go to Part 3 – Elijah and the Sound of Sheer Silence »
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