As human beings we need to learn to quiet the noise and hear God’s voice. Ecclesiastics 9:17 tells us,
“The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.”
We as a world we are in constant competition for our attention. Every moment offers another notification, another trending topic, another voice trying to shape our thoughts and pull away our focus. But it’s not only the natural world that is fighting for our time and energy scripture teachers that there is a supernatural war happening around us, a battle for our affection, our allegiance, and our discernment.
That’s why our spiritual clarity build harder to find when the world gets noisier. Silence from God is often not absence. It is a signal that something else has grown too loud.
There is a strategy in the noise.
C.S. Lewis, in his book The Screwtape Letters, imagined the voice of the enemy describing hell as occupied by noise, with a mission to make the whole universe a noise in the end.
His words capture a biblical truth. The enemy (Satan) is determined to distract us. He wants to drown out wisdom with volume. He knows that a noisy soul becomes a confused soul, and confusion, weekends our ability to hear God clearly.
The only way to combat this noise is to let the Word of God tune our ears and heart to the truth.
Psalm 119:105 reminds us that God‘s word is a “lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” Without it, the noise becomes overwhelming, with it our steps grow steady again.
In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah was discouraged and desperate to hear from God. So God instructed him to stand on a mountain and wait. What came next with loud, dramatic, and powerful.
A great wind toward the mountains apart, but the Lord was not in the wind. An earthquake shook the ground, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. A fire blaze before Elijah, but the Lord was not in the fire.
Then came something entirely different -a gentle whisper. A quiet voice carried on stillness.
God chose to speak in a whisper to remind Elijah and us that His voice can be missed when we are only looking for Him in the loud and dramatic.
We very seldom tune everything else out and listen for that gentle whisper.
I seem to always hear God when I’m in nature, and everything else is silent.
The world is filled with resources meant to teach and encourage us. Whether at the sermon, a devotional, study books, podcasts, or conversations, or even this blog. I see this resources as gifts. But none of them can take the place of the Bible.
God’s Word is not commentary.
It’s not a suggestion. It’s not background noise. It is the verse source of truth.
We must be careful not to replace the living Word of God with reflections about it. Proverbs 4:24 reminds us, ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” There is no person who is perfect, any resource we learn from can make mistakes. Everything we believe as truth needs to be align with God’s Word. I work diligently to share with you the true Word of God, but I a human and can make mistakes.
Through every resource we use to teach us we need to pursue and prioritize getting into God’s Word above anything else.
Hebrews 4:12 tells us that, “The Word of God is alive and active.” It cuts through confusion, exposes lies, strengthens faith, and creates clarity, where the world creates noise.
From Pity to Praise 