It’s hard to hear that “still small voice” when you’re down on the ground at sea-level or wherever you may be where the world is full of the distracting noise of vehicles, people, sirens, television, cell phones and the neck-wracking-eye-wracking obsessive compulsive disorder of constantly checking social media. Let’s not forget about the lure of 24/7 work that is praised and worshiped in our culture.
I forget this. I will forget it again. My joints will hurt, my chest will hurt, the circulation in my hands and feet will become poor. My body will cry out and I will assume I am sick; that there is something internal that is broken and beyond my control (and there is, there is a spiritual brokenness, not a physical broken).
Then something will call me out into the wilderness. It will tempt me and challenge me and pull me into things that I do not think I can do. “Climb above the clouds,” I will hear in that still small voice. That pain I feel in my joints and my chest, that desperation I feel in my heart…it’s all just calling me to adventure. It’s calling me to silence. It’s calling me to places I do not think I can go. But when I get there, when I step foot into the request of the “still small voice,” I hear Him. I hear the Father who has written this calling deep into my heart.
I heard him very recently: “I have missed you,” my Father said. “Listen…” ….silence….
I forgot what that sounded like. The silence where I can hear God and nothing else. Where he calls me to dirt and dust and wind-through-the-trees and sun and heat and blisters and hurting legs and feet and sunburned skin. He calls to places we forget about in this world of capitalism and consumerism and 24/7 work. He calls all of us to places where we can see His workmanship and Sing His Glory. He calls us to places where we can hear His Voice, that Still Small Voice that cries desperately from our hearts to find that one thing that we desperately need: We need Him.
Sometimes we have to climb above the clouds to understand how much we need Him when we are living life down at sea level.
What do you hear and feel in your life? What pains? What is your heart seeking? Oh! That we all should rise from our computers and our desks and find that thing which will heal!