The Noise & The Voice

The Noise & The Voice

(1 Kings 17:1, 19:11-12)

Noise is all around me,

sounds and lights, digital and real,

distracting mind and heart

with the banality of life.

Where is the Voice?

Does He still speak

even in the midst of chaos?

Speak, holy still small voice!

Enable me to hear.

Turn me from the cacophony

to the silence of your desert.

The Voice still speaks!

For you are the God

before whom I stand

Compact Devotions

"In fact, countless devotionals and study Bibles are based on the concept of getting our clarity in two minutes or less. This trains us to think there is “time with God” and “our time.” The compartmentalization of His voice to set times we commune with Him is a dangerous place to live. Is it our goal to spend the slightest amount of time possible with the Lord and still be in relationship with Him? I’m not discounting the effectiveness of these publications or their place in our lives at certain times, but their very existence validates a system that tries to battle the noise with the least amount of commitment—just like a specific type of soda in your grocery store indicates a precise kind of beverage-drinker guzzling down that exact flavor of food coloring or aspartame. (What exactly is caramel color, anyway?)

Noise is battled fifteen, ten, and five minutes at a time.

But do you think it’s working?

As the body of Christ, are we winning this struggle?

Has it worked for you?

Are you still a servant—or, more truthfully, slave—to the noise?

I’ll let you decide.

Continually packaging God’s Word in compact and easy-to-use ways will continue to produce compact and easy-to-use followers of Christ—who possibly have compact dreams and easy visions."

     - Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise

Fasting From Noise

From @AnnVoskamp

The Loudness of Soul That Deafens

Below is an excerpt from a poem entitled Trial's Cry by Sheryl Fowler, based on Job 29:2  -“Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me."

Oh, how we long for yesterday, when in the midst of the test

and Trial; we cry for the days of yore

If we could only go back to when the Lord was close, the

tears were dry, and the pain was no more

The test is a desert so hot and dry, loneliness is our companion

and a stillness of the hovering heavens

It’s a place where we come face to face with our inner being, a

loudness of our own soul that deafens…

Please read the rest at the link. Her phrase "a loudness of our own soul that deafens" haunts me. I'm currently going through something - a searching of my heart and soul over the need for quietness and silence to be able to hear the voice of God more clearly.

My world is loud - and it is mostly my fault. The noise of radio, TV and music, and the silent noise of on-line connectivity, is overwhelming. 

Help me, Lord, to learn quietness so that I can listen and hear.