As I was sitting down to compose this blog, some workmen in our building began a cacophony of drilling and hammering. Itʼs probably several floors away, but it sounds as if itʼs just on the other side of the wall.
Iʼm reminded of that passage in the Old Testament where Elijah the prophet was hiding in a cave, waiting for God's direction about what he should do. There was a windstorm—one of those big, crashing jobs that topple trees and reshape the landscape—and a rolling, bucking earthquake, and finally a great, raging fire, a real inferno; and the Bible says Godʼs voice wasnʼt in any of them.
It finally came instead as “a still, small voice,” or, as the Revised Standard Version says, “a sound of sheer silence.”
I'm sure there are exceptions, but we usually donʼt hear God as well in the noise and rush of things as we do when weʼre quiet and composed and can really listen for those inner voices that whisper in our hearts. This is probably why we picture wisdom as a Tibetan monk sitting in a meditative posture high up in the Himalayas and not as a business tycoon with four secretaries, six associates, and a dozen phones on his desk.
What does this say about your life and mine today? How are we positioned for hearing the voice of God? What did Jesus say, that weʼre to go into the closet to pray—or maybe to the park? And did he say it or am I merely redacting scripture when I remember his adding, “Don't take your cell phone or your Blackberry”? |