I believe that God speaks to us all the time.  Sometimes we are just not listening.  Like a child ignoring a parent so that we don’t have to obey.  I don’t believe that God is ever silent.  Even close friends who are comfortable in silence will eventually fall back into conversation again.  God longs for relationship with us and on that basis alone we know He is speaking to us.

Primarily through His word.  Hebrews 4:12

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

I have known God to speak to me through His Word, and I love the word of God.  But recently I realised that I had not heard from God in a while, not because He was not speaking, but because I was comfortable with silence between us.  It had nothing to do with whether God was speaking, He was.  But I didn’t have ears to hear.

“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Matt 11:15

Why was I not hearing God? My ears were so overloaded that I couldn’t hear God.  It was so noisy around me and in me that I could not hear.

My ears are overloaded

  • There was the noise of my own thoughts, my fears and frustrations were loud like thunder in my ears.
  • There was my “to-do” list, an annoying buzz, like tinnitus. Generated from inside of me with no source other than my own busyness and importance.
  • Then there was the noise I was making, the games, the social media, the podcasts, the music, the TV, the latest book. I am constantly filling my mind with ideas and images, keeping my mind and my thought life busy.  Yes, there is benefit to constantly learning, but my mind is so full there is no room for anything else.
  • I am tuned into everything and everyone, news and acquaintances share information with me, so much information, much more than my mind can actually handle. In the end, it is all just noise.  I do not have ears to hear.

The Pharisees were believers who had ears that could not hear, so full of the law and their own religion that they could not hear what Jesus was saying to them, they did not have ears to hear.

When our ears are so full of noise, no surprise we lose a hunger for God’s word, there simply is no appetite for it.  We get comfortable with silence from God because we live in noise.

When last did you make silence in your life?

When we want to hear with a surrendered heart, we are willing to pause, to seek out the quiet in our lives, to quiet our minds and our environments in order to allow God to speak to our hearts.

God then doesn’t just fill the silence, He penetrates into our hearts and minds and speaks to our will, our circumstances, our motivations, our mind, our desires, He calls from deep unto deep (Psalm 42:7).  Elijah when he wanted to hear from God, did not step out in the wind, earthquake or fire, but waited for the silence so that He could hear the gentle whisper as God spoke. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Each of us has a cacophony of noise that numbs our ears, a tinnitus that dominates what we hear, a distraction that pulls us away, a complacency that rises in us that becomes comfortable with silence from God.  God is never silent in His relationship with us, our ears are polluted by a noise of our own making.

We don’t do anything about seeking silence because we are comfortable with silence from God.

Because if we do hear from Him… it will require a response from us.

  • Check your ears!  Are they overloaded if you look at the characteristics above?
  • Have you lost a hunger for the word of God because you do not have ears to ear?

Lord I am tired of believing that You are not talking to me, when it is actually me, that has ears for not hearing you.  I am quick to fill my ears and mind with something, numbing my ears with noise.  Forgive me for being comfortable with not hearing from you, not taking part in our conversation, not allowing you to be real and present in my life.  Help me to identify the noise in my life, to recommit to finding silence.  Help me to silence myself and take time to be silent. Help me to practice retreating from the world and waiting, so that You can speak to me in a whisper.  Help me not to be comfortable with not hearing your voice. I want to hear from You Lord.