By Jeanni Ritchie
I’d gone out of town for the weekend. I was only an hour from home, but it was far enough to lose the station my radio was usually tuned into. I had to find another.
I found one with a strong signal and familiar Christian music filled the air. The signal remained throughout the drive home and I’d forgotten it wasn’t my usual station.
The next morning when I started the car, Ice, Ice, Baby was blaring through the speakers. My first thought was that somebody must be sampling the Vanilla Ice hit in a new Christian song. Odd, but doable. My next thought — as it became obvious this was the original 1990 song — was that the radio dial must’ve been bumped while I was unloading the car. Before I had a chance to change it, a phone call came in and shortly after I reached my destination.
When I got back in the car this time, the radio was playing Josiah Queen’s Can’t Steal My Joy clear as day. It was then that I realized two different stations were coming through the same channel. And I couldn’t help but think it was the perfect metaphor for our minds.
We hear God clearly, so much that His voice becomes second nature to our ears. But circumstances — the static of the trials and tribulations we all face — begin to muddy the signal. We start hearing two different frequencies. We aren’t as sure when it’s the Lord’s voice coming through — or when it’s the devil’s. The louder the static, the harder it is to differentiate.
It doesn’t help that Satan likes to masquerade as an angel of light. He will give you a truth with one tiny deception. And that one little lie gives him access to your mind where he multiplies deception like a single fruit fly on a piece of rotting fruit.
But first he tries to sneak in on the Lord’s frequency.
So, what can you do?
The verse is simple: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)
But it doesn’t feel so simple when there’s so much noise in your head. I get it; I’ve been there.
I’ve found these three things help me the most:
*Spend more time in the Word. The Lord’s voice will never contradict Scripture.
*Be still. There’s much wisdom in Psalm 46:10. Oftentimes, we just need to sit quietly as the right answer settles deep within us and we know it is the one from the Lord. It is the Voice that remains when all other noises die down.
*Talk less, meditate more. Psalm 119:15 says, I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. We can’t consider His ways when we won’t stop talking about our own. Well-meaning loved ones may offer good advice, but it might not be the godly answer we are searching for.
I don’t know about you, but I can talk myself into two completely different solutions ten different times within the same conversation. Sit in prayer, but don’t talk. Just listen. The Lord already hears your heart.
I certainly couldn’t speak that day in my car. I just sat mesmerized in my car as I listened to different songs come in and out, with noisy pockets of pure static. It was the perfect picture of what it feels like to try to hear God clearly.
John 10:27 is simple. Life is not. Sometimes the static is loud. Sometimes the frequencies overlap. Sometimes we have to sit in the noise longer than we’d like before clarity comes. That doesn’t mean we don’t know the Shepherd. It means we’re human. And He is patient while we learn to listen.
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