The Noise We Choose

Why is recognizing the Lord’s voice so hard?

This seems to be one of our most consistent struggles as Christians:
Hearing God’s voice.

“When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” John 10:4-5

We may have a long list of all the prayers we are bringing to God or situations that we need him to heal, but how often do we sit to listen back to him?

But we do listen, right?

Podcasts, audiobooks, tips from Christian influencers, sermons on demand, even the opportunity to “pray” with celebrities through pre-recorded meditations… the list can go on and on. We have all these resources that speak the voice of God over us, being more ‘connected’ to the Lord than ever before, yet we still can’t distinguish His voice from the tempter.

It’s not just listening that is the problem, we run to the noise.

Every chance we get: call, scroll, text, email, games, often two of those at a time. We delete the apps we tell ourselves that we hate and yet I open my phone and click the empty space. A phantom tap reaching for one more hit.

When did life get so noisy?

I was thinking about this the other day, stepped outside & imagine that: silence.

My wife & I just moved out of the city into the ‘burbs, but man has outside always been that quiet? Is my head just that loud? For a second I didn’t know what to do with it. As I stepped into my backyard, I thought to myself, “How did the early church even do it? Where did they go to learn, or even grow in their spiritual life? What did it look like for them to even just try to know the Lord’s voice, without all the resources that we have now?”

As I tried to think through this for myself, I made a list of what it couldn’t have been:

• they didn’t have any podcast or recorded commentary

• they had no notes from sunday’s homily / sermon

• they didn’t even have a bible to go read or dissect for themselves

All they had was what they knew.

And what was already in their mind.

And that was enough.

Our relationship with the Lord can revolve around noise, and to be honest it’s often overproduced. So much so that we miss the complete foundation of what the early church had: Silence.

A full and total embrace of silence.

How did they even do it?

They worked in silence.

They traveled in silence.

They cooked in silence.

They leisured in silence.

They had no other option, but imagine the clarity & connection with the Lord that we could have if we embraced silence at even a fraction of this depth.

Silence, truly, is a gift. It is a chance to connect back to who you are, let the dust settle, even allow the Lord to speak over your life. But we must foster it to find it.

You already know what comes next, that is the secret here.

To know the Lord’s voice is to listen to those tiny convictions that build up your spiritual muscle. It is there, that you will grow to continue to hear the shepherd’s voice as he calls. It’s not a question of whether he’s speaking, rather when will you have the space to hear that he is speaking to you.

It might just be today.

Praying for you,

-CB