Dear Faith Family,
I know a not-to-be-named acquaintance whose spouse snores. I am sure many spouses snore, but in this particular case, the nightly noises cause more than brief wakings and fail elimination with elbow nudges. So, to sleep in the shared space of the spouse and remain somewhat aware of the surroundings, this acquaintance uses earplugs. These are not noise eliminating, sound-proof bubble creating headphones. They are the malleable foam kind that fit and figure themselves to the ear's canal, muffling sounds, muting the intensity and consistency of the noise. Sounds hit the ear like a "far off" noise or background chatter rather than a face-to-face conversation...or a freight train!
While earplugs help my acquaintance sleep and aid the acquaintance's marital relationship, earplugs are not as helpful when employed in relationship with our heavenly Father. Oh sure, they'll help us sleep, but muting the intensity and consistency of His voice is the reason for our difficulties and complaints in Hearing God.
To be sure, many of us are guilty of using earplugs without even being aware of it. Some of the earplugs are products of our environment and education. We have chatted about a few of these:
our misguided understandings of who God is and what he intends for us,
our mistaken ideas about how God speaks, and
being unaccustomed to God's verbal vibrations (like Samuel).
Nevertheless, some of the voice filtering material in our heart's ears is indeed of our own making, such as a lack of shared focus, which we discussed a couple of weeks ago. But there are two additional earplugs that cause God's voice to seem "far off" or indistinguishable chatter. They are:
being unready to put his word to use, and
self-employment.
Being unready to put God's word to use has nothing to do with skills or effort. Instead, it has to do with our devotion. Devotion is an old word, I know, but it remains the best descriptor. As a devotee, my attitudes and actions revolve around the will of the one to whom I show fidelity. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" (Matt. 6:10).
If I am honest, there are times when my devotion is splintered, and there is little regard for what "Thy's will" is. What He desires is so far from mind and heart that if I were to hear him speak, I wouldn't know what to do with it. For, as Dallas Willard reminds us when God speaks, "it is to accomplish his good purposes in our lives." My lack of devotion to his glory and allegiance to his kingdom, muffle the continual guidance daily sounding.
While being unready to put God's word for me to use can be (at times) a passive plugging, the final earplug is undoubtedly not. The earplug of self-employment requires some honest examination for us Jesus followers. Many of us, myself included, pray Jesus' prayer for God's kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven as a general desire but not as participants. We have no problem asking for the provisions that follow in Matthew 6:11-13, but at the end of the day, we are self-employed receipts of governmental grace rather than kingdom collaborators. Dallas Willard puts it this way,
"perhaps we [have trouble hearing God] because we know we fully intend to run our lives on our own and have never seriously considered anything else. The voice of God would therefore be an unwelcome intrusion into our plans."
If hearing God is going to be a willing, conscious companionship, we'll have to recognize and remove those earplugs that muffle his voice. Earplugs we are all guilty of using from time to time.
So I want to invite you this week, and throughout this series, to repent with me. Consider these common, malleable, earplugs, and then ask our Father who formed us and knows us and who desires us to have ears that hear without obstruction, to
"Search me, loving Father, and know my heart! See for yourself what's clogging my ears; then guide me with unsuppressed volume."
(Psalm 139:24, a bit adapted!)
Confessing what earplugs we use allows us to unstop our ears, and experience the clarity and intensity of a voice that is face-to-face. May we bear much fruit in keeping with repentance.
Love you. God bless.