Being the Beloved - A Monthly Blog from CFDM Northwest
By David Hicks
I was recently camping on Whidbey Island in a place that sits on a high bluff overlooking Admiralty Inlet where the Pacific Ocean comes in to form our beautiful Puget Sound. Sitting on a bench, looking out over this magnificent vista one morning, I began to be aware of all of the sounds around me that I had not been paying attention to. One by one they began to break in on my own awareness as I set my ears to intentional listening. Waves breaking on the beach 100 feet below me. Birds bringing in the new day with their song. The breeze blowing through the tall grasses that line the bluff. A sea lion sitting on a navigational buoy just off shore barking at nothing in particular. A distant jet taking off from the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island. Conversations of people a half mile away that, because of the direction of the wind and contour of the bluff, I could hear as if they were sitting ten feet away from me. Multiple sounds washed over me as I began to pay attention. When I first sat down I wasn’t aware of any of them. But as I sat there, still, for a while and “tuned in” I began to hear what had already been there.
Sometimes we approach listening to God as an exercise in trying to get God to speak. We can’t hear, so we try and listen really hard, hoping that the voice of God will speak through the silence and give us the direction that we seek. I can’t tell you the number of times I have thought--and sometimes said out loud, “I am listening, but God is not speaking.” The more I journey within this thing called “Faith” the more I am realizing how narrow my understanding of listening is. I tend to listen “for” God rather than listening “to” God. I listen FOR a specific kind of response to the specific thing that I have specifically told God I need to hear, rather than simply listening TO all that God is already saying.
How much we miss hearing because we just don’t know how to listen outside of ourselves. To use the language of modern digital technology, we need to move from narrowband to broadband reception. We often obsessively tune in to one particular station waiting to hear something and in so doing miss what God is already broadcasting on multiple other channels. What I need to remember is that God is ALWAYS speaking, ALWAYS communicating, ALWAYS engaged. This is the nature of God. The Trinity lives in eternal community and is constantly communicating. The problem is not that God is not speaking. The problem is that I am often unable or unwilling to listen beyond myself to the ever-present, never-ending, always-speaking voice of the One who simply cannot be silent.
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.