Be Still To Hear
In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God:
Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.
One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn't find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.
Amazed, the men asked him how he found it.
"I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking."
Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are still enough and quiet enough to hear. Yes, Jesus assures us that our heavenly Father always listens to us, but do we really listen to Him? Do we follow the instructions of Psalm 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God?"
The Silent Conversation
I’m a preacher and preachers talk. That’s kind of our thing. But during [a] time of blog silence, I noticed something: some of us talk too much! We long to be heard. Therefore we have blogs, video blogs, Twitter accounts, Snapchat accounts, and Facebook walls that are full of quotes, rants, and “wise teachings.” In reality, they are full of us. We long to be heard.
But sometimes, the greatest things we can say are said in complete silence.
In 2012, Eddie Murphy starred in a movie called A Thousand Words. The movie received mixed reviews, but it struck a chord with me. Eddie Murphy’s character, Jack McCall, loved to talk. He was an author’s agent and an arrogant, slick talker. Through a series of events in the movie, he finds out that he only has 1000 words left to speak. After the 1000th word, he will die. The point of the movie is not “What would you say if you had only 1000 words left?” Rather, the point is “What can you hear, learn, and communicate when silence is forced upon you.”
When we talk to God, we generally use words. But have you ever had a silent conversation with God where all he was listening to was your heart? And all you were listening to was Him? There are times to talk, but there are times to follow the example of the Psalmist, "I will listen to what God the Lord says." (Psalm 85:8)
A Restraining Order On God
Stuart Winer, with TIMES OF ISRAEL, reports:
An Israeli man has petitioned the Haifa Magistrate’s Court for a restraining order against God, claiming the Almighty has been particularly unkind to him. The initiator of the request, a resident of the northern port city, represented himself in court, the Walla news site reported on Wednesday.
A protocol of the hearing noted that God did not turn up for the session, although it did not specify how the court determined the Omnipresent was not in fact there, as opposed to merely exercising the right to remain silent.
The petitioner, who was not named in the report, noted that he had tried to obtain the restraining order from police for the past three years but that police had merely sent a patrol car to his home on 10 occasions.
He argued that over a three-year period, God had exhibited a seriously negative attitude toward him, although details of just what divine mischief he had borne the brunt of were not mentioned in the report.
Presiding Judge Ahsan Canaan denied the request, which he said was ludicrous, asserting the applicant needed help not from the court but rather from other sources.
The judge may have thought this man “ludicrous,” but haven’t most of us had the feeling we were being treated unfairly by the All Mighty? If the courts can’t help us at such times, to whom do we turn? Who will be our advocate? And if it's important to have an advocate when we're feeling unfairly treated, how much more when we have sinned against God?
“My dear children ... we have an advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1).
“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).