How Do I Listen with All This Noise?
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I was ready to move away from the picture of “listening” to the next snapshot of love. However, during my walk this morning I realized (or was it that God spoke to me?) I had more to say about listening. I went out fairly early expecting a quiet time that I could spend listening for God’s voice. The peacefulness of the morning, however, was immediately disrupted by noise–large SUV’s, rumbling trucks, sputter of lawnmowers.
It occurred to me that one of the reasons it is so difficult to hear God’s voice is because of the constant noise in our world. Over the weekend I was watching a football game on TV. The camera showed a close up of two college students in the crowd. As the fans around them yelled and screamed, one girl leaned over to shout something in the other girl’s ear. The second girl had a perplexed look on her face and I could see her mouth the words, “What?! What did you say?!” The noise was so overwhelming they could not hear each other despite their proximity.
Sometimes we can’t hear God despite our proximity because of the noise surrounding us. I’m not just thinking about audible noise in the normal sense here. I think it’s possible for our spirit to hear the Spirit of God even in the loudest of conditions. I’m thinking of more subtle noise–the background noise of our lives. Here are a few noises in my own life that keep me from hearing God.
Worry and Anxiety. I often find myself worrying about my family or my work. This morning I have a concern about one of my children that is making it difficult for me to concentrate even on this writing. I’m also nursing some anxiety about an event I’m supposed to lead next week. In both cases, my mind races ahead to all the possible disasters that might occur. These thoughts push through every thing else until that’s all I can think about. It’s all I hear. The noise keeps me from hearing God.
It takes a great deal of effort to set aside the worry, place them in the hands of God, and listen. Sometimes I’m so busy yelling, “I don’t know I’m going to do. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” that I can’t hear God right beside me saying, “Here’s a suggestion. Why don’t you try this.”
Pursuit of Success. I know I’m not the only one guilty of succumbing to this noise because I see it in the media and in people I know all the time. We get so involved in our careers or in accomplishing some goal that we can think of nothing else. Each moment of the day is given to thinking about our goals. If we’re not thinking about them, we are deeply engaged in some project that we think will move us toward those goals. The constant voices of success and achievement keep us from hearing the voice of God.
Often we move forward with the assumption that our goals are God-given and thus all we need to hear from God. Whatever journey your on, God wants to be part of each moment, not just to affirm what you want to accomplish, but to affirm you and guide you along the way.
Intentional Avoidance. There are times I don’t want to hear the voice of God. There are times I don’t want to be alone with myself. I’m afraid of what I’ll see or hear. So I fill my mind with trivialities in order to find something to fill the void. I waste hours on the computer for example surfing for things that don’t really matter. Or I’ll tweak my website to make it look better (who cares?). Others avoid God and themselves in different ways–watch too much TV, turn the radio on, plug in their Ipod, play their video games–anything to distract them from listening to the voice of God.
It’s not that any of these things are bad in themselves. Rather, the tragedy comes when instead of allowing ourselves times of silence or moments of inactivity, we search for anything to fill the voids we feel. We are afraid of being bored, which I think is a fear of being alone with ourselves and alone with God. For some reason we will do anything to avoid those moments.
We show love for God when we purposefully remove the noise from our lives. The act of setting aside my worries or my goals or my trivial pursuits is a demonstration to God that I find the Divine presence more important than all the rest. That is love.
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