There’s a phenomenon of nature I have noticed. When I sit at my desk each morning facing east, I usually sit in the dark for a few minutes before I turn the light on just trying to wake up a little bit and try to center myself on the Lord God. I open the window, which my desk sits in front of, so that I can hear. I love the night sounds, we usually sleep with our window open, but I also love the morning sounds, or actually, the lack of day sounds. Sure my feet sometimes get cold, but I just slip a blanket over my legs so I can feel, smell, and hear the day awaken. I don’t want to miss that.
Back to the phenomenon…traveling sounds. We’re planted with the mountain on our west and town to our east. Driving to town sometimes seems like we live a far piece out, but listening in the early morning sometimes sounds like we’re built beside the interstate. As I sit here writing, I can hear the interstate plain as day. Vehicles, trucks traveling north to south, south to north. My grandma used to say the trucks traveling past their house on Route 11 were “singing.” That song is not one of my favorites.
The way we hear sound is very curious to me. Granted, plenty of trees and natural barriers have been removed between the mountain and the interstate, nevertheless, plenty of barriers remain to absorb the sounds of the interstate too – ridges and hills, orchards, trees, leaves, brush. But still…the interstate sound. Granted it is sometimes louder than other times, depending on the density of trees and whether or not they have their leaves, depending on the density of the elements of the atmosphere too like smog, fog, rain, snow.
But, there is a certain psychology to sound. Not only is it physical, it happens through your brain and your ears and for some through the eyes, but it is also psychology, sound happens in our emotions. For instance, hearing a baby cry triggers happiness and causes us to go awwwww. That same cry can also cause concern. That physical sound not only triggers a physical response, but it triggers an emotional response as well. Sounds have the ability to interact with our emotional hearts and create feelings. Deep…sorry.
The interstate sounds remind me some of my relationship with God. Sometimes I can hear Him so clearly moving in my world, singing His love song, His guidance song, His comfort song, His provision song, His salvation song and I react emotionally, with feelings, with my heart. Like when a baby cries, as the song says, the Baby’s cry is the sound of love come down, He has come, Emmanuel!
At other times, though I may not be able to hear God’s voice, or distinguish God’s voice above the parade of the interstate noise, you know, the vroom songs of life. My ability to hear God’s voice is dependent almost wholly on me. Have I removed the barriers that keep me from hearing Him? Have I cut down all the trees that are muffling the sounds? Have I placed the barriers that block the chatter of the world? Have the elements of the atmosphere of the world, pain, fear, anger, anxiety, made it difficult for me to hear His song and made it difficult for me to feel His song in my heart?
You know, in Jesus day, it wouldn’t have been the interstate that made it hard to hear the baby’s cry, it may have been a caravan traveling to hometowns for the government required census, it may have been Herod’s angry cries, it may have been the sound of Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus fleeing to Africa, the sound of the Pharisees, the sound of Pilate’s verdict, the sounds of betrayal and rejection, the sound of Jesus being nailed to the cross. Today, even the thoughts of those sounds emit an emotional response for those who love the Lord.
How can we tune in to the Lord’s voice through the din of the world? How do we distinguish the voice of the Living God from the cacophony of our lives? What is the key to hearing God in our loud lives, in our noisy worlds? The Word. We cannot hope to hear the Lord if we don’t know Him. Where do we learn to recognize the sound of His voice? In His Word. We can live as close to Him as we want to, The Lord does not set up barriers to keep us from knowing Him, from hearing Him. We do. He will not tear down the barriers we set up to block His voice. We must.
I listen carefully to what God the LORD is saying,
for he speaks peace to his faithful people.
But let them not return to their foolish ways.
Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
so our land will be filled with his glory. Psalm 85:8-9
He came to us, He pursued us – He is the Good News. How will we respond to the sounds of The Most High, the sound of love come down?
Come on, let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this wonderful thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. Luke 2:15