By Shirlene Grace Isaac | Bangalore, India | May 4, 2023 | Share A Thought
Have you played the game of Chinese Whispers?
You know the drill! Players stand in a line and whisper a message from one person to the next until it gets to the end of the line. The last person in the line then has to repeat the message out loud for everyone to hear.
Amidst the loudness of the group and the inescapable distractions of the players, communication has to occur between two parties, the listener and the speaker. Yet, the peculiarity of the game is that no two players can successfully communicate the initial message throughout the entire game.
Each person happens to whisper a message exclusive to themselves and the hearer. As far as my knowledge is concerned the speaker makes every effort to communicate what he/she heard, but if an equal effort is not put in by the hearer, then either the message heard is faulty, incomplete or not heard at all.
Most often, our relationship with God can resemble a game of Chinese whispers. Since we are either part of the boisterous throng that doesn't care about the information being given or we are like the listeners who don't put in enough effort to hear and absorb the message—we don't hear the speaker’s (God’s) whisper AKA the “still small voice”!
Let's be honest and admit that life can be loud. And if you’re anything like me you are probably among the boisterous group, slogging through life, bogged down by an endless list of things to do and an expanding list of things that still need to be done.
We fight against distractions and busyness, not to mention the emotional havoc it causes in our life, thereby preventing us from living in fellowship with God. No fellowship means no voice.
And we begin to slowly go down an endless rollercoaster of tuning God’s voice out of our lives.
So, now what?
How do we hear God’s voice in the noise? Let’s take lessons from Bible’s best.
First up, we have
Moses
On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
Exodus 19:16-18
The noise in Moses’s story was a healthy mix of natural phenomena like thunder and lightning, a supernatural phenomena like the loud trumpet blasts and a group of trembling Israelites. Scripture does not fail to dramatise the noise of the trumpet that happened to grow louder and louder. Yet Moses, with all faith that God’s hearing senses are way past that of human beings spoke to God, and then God opened up Moses’ ears to hear His voice in the noise. Now, I can only imagine to a certain extent what it would’ve been like to be surrounded by smoke—even my imagination sends shivers down my spine. But I guess for Moses, anything to do with fire, smoke and hearing the voice of God was normal.
Next up we have.
Elijah
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
1 Kings 19: 11-12
The sound of the wind and mountains tearing apart could have easily kept Elijah from hearing the still small voice of God. This is yet another example of noisy supernaturally natural phenomena. Rocks don’t shatter quietly, same goes with wind and fire and earthquakes. Not to forget the noise in his head from the crippling anxiety of running for his life from Ahab and Jezebel and to top it off he hadn’t eaten for 40 days. But, he was sensitive to the voice in the noise—the whisper that came at the end of all the raucous. Elijah responded to that whisper by going and standing at the entrance of the cave where he was hiding to commune with God.
If you think this story is mind-blowing, wait for the next one.
Jesus
As soon as Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:13-17
The three parties witnessing this baptism were people from all of Judea, Jerusalem and Jordan (Mt 3:5), the Pharisees and Sadducees (Mt 3:7) and John the Baptist (Mt:3).
Here’s a point to ponder though, who do you believe heard the voice of God when He said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased”? Jesus did. What about the crowd and the religious leaders?
Well for starters, if the crowd had heard the voice of the Father, history would have been different. The identity of Jesus would have been revealed to the people, unbelief wouldn’t have been an issue and the Sanhedrin (high council) wouldn’t have asked,
Are you then the Son of God? Luke 16:70.
Either that or the voice would’ve freaked people out since they hadn’t heard from God for about 400 years.
It is most likely that only Jesus heard the voice of the Father in the noise of the crowd. How so? Scripture says so! What I mean is that it was only after the super cool descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus that the “voice of God” followed. This means it is the Holy Spirit who enabled Jesus to hear the voice of God better because no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2:10) And the Bible doesn’t say that Holy Spirit descended on the crowd or John the Baptist. Case closed?
But before we get to why these three phenomenal examples heard the voice of God and what we can learn from them, let’s understand why it’s important to hear the voice of God. 1. God wants us to hear His voice. Just like any father loves to speak to His children, God our Father loves communing with us. In fact, He is seen urging us to listen to Him both in the Old Testament and New.
If only My people would hear My voice and Israel would follow My direction! Psalms 81:12
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says. Romans 1:18 2. Listening to God expresses intimacy just like that of a shepherd and his sheep. The more you do it the more you recognize his voice regardless of the noise.
My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27 3. It was this voice of God that not only propelled Jesus into His ministry but also kept Him in ministry. I’m not going to spell it all out here, don’t worry! You can read through either of the three Synoptic Gospels to understand this. 4. It was the voice that gave Moses and Elijah revelations on their next assignment.
Moses received the ten commandments which he was to convey to the Israelites (Exodus 20) and Elijah was asked to anoint two kings and the soon-to-be prophet Elisha (1 Kings 19).
Takeaways
1. Space out
Scripture teaches us the absolute importance of creating personal space for prayer—just you and God. Jesus modelled that so well.
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35
We also learn that Moses was asked to leave the Israelites behind and climb up the mountain alone to hear God.
The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up. Exodus 19
Elijah was alone in a cave when he heard God.
And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19: 9
Space out from the world and dive into the presence of God. Don’t fear alone time, rather look forward to it. Expect to hear from God before you begin your quiet time, and walk in with full faith that He will speak to you rather than fearing that He won’t. God is pleased with that kind of faith and when He responds to that faith—in whatever majestic way that He does—it will blow your mind!
2. Hard and fast
For those who want to grow closer to God and hear when He speaks to them, fasting enables you to enter into a space without chaos and distraction. Here’s a fact, food is not just a necessity for our physical health, it is a form of pleasure in life. And when we make a conscious effort to avoid food while we fast, we are denying ourselves our physical comfort and shifting our focus on God. This teaches us self-discipline, it is an act of faith, it can sharpen our awareness of the presence of God, and will improve our ability to hear what He is telling us. Guess what! Jesus, Moses and Elijah—or the transfiguration trio as I’d call them (high five if you got the reference)— were the only characters in the Bible who fasted 40 days.
3. Oh “wait”
Talk about waiting and I’m reminded of this song
Seeking you as a precious jewel
Lord to give up I’d be a fool
You are my all in all.
Multiple events occurred for both Moses and Elijah before the voice of God just came through—none of them normal—all supernatural occurrences. They were scary, they were loud and each of the two OT heroes could have run away from the occurrences. But they waited. Then the voice came through. While we don’t have to face thunder, lightning and trumpets before we hear God, the silence before the voice of God can be deafening. The anxiety of whether He will speak or not is real. Nevertheless, wait! Giving up because you haven’t heard Him already is like a fool giving up on looking for treasure when all he needed to do was dig a little deeper or gymnast giving up because they don’t see immediate results.
Hearing God takes effort, it takes patience, it takes faith and most importantly it takes a lifestyle—a HOLY one I might add. Salvation is free but everything else from the Kingdom comes with a price. Hearing God is one of those Kingdom treasures that is worth more than the effort that you put in. Now let that sink in!
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