In a room of crying babies ...

In a room of crying babies...

...a mother can always distinguish her baby’s cry. She spends hours on her own with her baby, nursing and caring for him/her, and recognises the timbre of her baby’s voice. Not only that, there is a physical response to a nursing baby’s cry; the mother’s body reacts to a cry of hunger by immediately providing the right nourishment.

In a world of crying humanity, Jesus can always distinguish your voice. Paul writes in his first letter to the people in Corinth that ‘you are the Anointed One’s, and the Anointed One is God’s.’ The Anointed One is, of course, Jesus, and you are his, as am I, as is everyone who calls on his Name. 

He will never leave you nor forsake you, he promises. He is always with you. Even as you raise your voice to call out to him, to petition and beseech him for yourself or someone else, he knows your voice. He recognises your cry, and like a nursing mother, he responds. 

Unlike a nursing mother, though, he always knows what the problem is and why you are crying out. And he always has just the right answer. It is a good answer, an answer to meet your needs, because his plans are always to give you hope and a future.

He always recognises our voices, but we don’t always recognise his. Why is that? We need to get to know him in the quiet, on our own, reading his written word so that we get to know the voice we hear coming through it. We get to know his thoughts, his ways, and become absolutely assured of his love and goodness towards us. We learn to trust his guidance, knowing that it is always designed to bring the best for us. 

Like a person wearing a hearing aid who goes into a crowded and noisy gathering of people, if we go out into the world without being properly tuned to Jesus’ voice, we will be distracted by the cacophony of competing ideas and values. If we haven’t spent time in the quiet with Jesus, in peaceful contemplation and focus, then when the competition comes for our attention we may be diverted from his way. The enemy raises a ruckus, creating a noise of conflicting advice and temptations which may have just enough good in them to masquerade as God’s ideas. 

Unless we are prepared and our hearing is honed so we recognise our Saviour’s voice, we might easily be confused and fall victim to deception. Like the email I received this morning, ostensibly from a friend, relating a sad story of a plight of loss at the hands of thieves and the need for me to send her money. If I didn’t know that friend so well – if I didn’t know where she is right now – if I didn’t know where she might be – if I didn’t know her voice – I might fall prey to this scam and send money to the fraudster.

It happens. It happens everyday, in ordinary worldly situations and in our communion with God. We think we know his voice; we dash off in pursuit of something which has not come from him, because we haven’t taken the time to fully acquaint ourselves with the timbre of his voice and the nature of his communication.

We are the Anointed’s, and the Anointed is God’s.