Listening For The Voice

Listening for the Voice

Four red-upholstered, mechanized chairs sit in a row facing a stage. At the moment before a contestant steps up to perform, all four judges’ chairs rotate 180 degrees. They are unable to see the singer they’re judging. They can only listen for “the voice.” If they like what they hear, they press the button on the chair’s console, and a lighted sign on its base says “I want you.” The chair turns again and reveals to the judge the owner of the voice.

It’s a television gimmick, but it works—even though choosing something sight unseen is risky. The contrast between the look of the singer and the sound of his or her voice is often striking. This show reminds me that I sometimes struggle to discern the voice of God. I want to hear it, but I’m not always certain I have. I strain to pick up the nuanced leadings of his Spirit, the whispers and the warnings. I cannot see him, but I long to hear from him, to know he’s with me.

I’ve never seen God’s face, but I’ve come to recognize and love his voice. It causes me to turn and listen, turn and notice, turn and choose, every day. How could it not? It’s his voice that turned water into wine, calmed waves, and healed hurt people. It has become as familiar to me over time as the first voices I heard as a child, and there is never a time when it is not speaking.

Truthfully, I most often hear his “echo”—I know in retrospect that the voice I heard was his. But there are times—oh, those precious times!—when I recognize him in the moment, and we are able to communicate as friends.

I want to become a better listener. I want to turn and keep on turning at the sound of his voice. There is no sweeter sound.

The voice of the LORD hews out flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everything says, “Glory!”

Psalm 29:7-9, NASB