Breathe steam

A background ringing. A heaviness, as if a sock were stuffed inside my ear. I am not deaf, but I am relying on lip-reading to clarify what I think I hear. 

This is how I come to God. I want to hear his voice clearly, but there is a background ringing, an earworm reminding me of concerns, chores, people-to-call or e-mail. Distracting me from the focus I long to have. 

I want to hear his voice clearly, but there is something dulling the acuity of my hearing. Cultural baggage. Political correctness. Societal assumptions. 

I’ve been given some decongestant and told to breathe steam. I need to decongest my spiritual ears, and spend time in the steam-room of prayer and the sauna of the Bible.

I know that will do the trick. All I need is to prioritise the time...

A Bird in the Bush, or Tree

I seem to have hit a theme here of birds!

I was out earlier than usual with Dusty this morning, and realised that although the birds were raising a feathered chorus to greet the glorious, sunny morning, I couldn’t actually see any of them. I paused and stared at the trees in the woods and saw very few birds. 

It reminded me of a walk I had a few years ago with a birdwatcher, who kept pointing excitedly to various birds in trees which I hadn’t seen at all and would have missed if he hadn’t pointed them out. He had trained his eye to pick up the distinctive markings and the signs of movements from a huge number of birds. 

This drew my thoughts to hearing God. We all have trouble hearing God, unless we have trained our inner ear for his still, small voice, and trained our eyes to glimpse him in the everyday. That’s what he wants us to do. He says in the Bible that those who seek his face will find him. He invites us to spend time with him, sharing his thoughts. That is amazing.

How do we train ourselves to recognise the face or voice of God in our everyday activities then? It starts with the Bible, I think, so that we grow closer to what he reveals about himself there. We are aware of the attributes of his character – his kindness, his compassion, his purity and holiness and so on – and then we become more aware of the urges we feel within us towards developing and appreciating these attributes. Then as we think about him during the day, he sometimes suddenly draws back the curtain and we see him in all his glory, or we feel him almost imperceptibly. 

We begin to recognise prompts to do or say things – good things! – as being prompts from the Lord. And then it’s up to us to obey. And as we obey, we draw nearer to God and feel his presence more closely, and hear him better each day.

Maybe one day I will be able to see the birds in the trees. But more importantly, today I want to hear God more clearly during my daily routine, which today is looking rather frenetic. 

‘Be still and know that I am God.’

Turn it down!

This will immediately give my age away. We went to a ceilidh (Scottish country dances) on the weekend, and the music was just too loud.

It was a good band, and if we had been able to dance perhaps I’d not have noticed. But with Don’s recent leg surgery, we were confined to the table with the other non-dancers, who all seemed to feel a need to keep up a conversation. Which is fine, if you can hear each other.

The conversations were interesting. I think. But I couldn’t hear everything that was being said. And my own throat began to hurt with the strain of shouting into another person’s ear.

At least there was a woman there who is younger than me, who had to flee the noise because of a headache developing.

Life in the twenty-first century is just too loud. Have you noticed that? Many people don’t feel comfortable unless there is music playing in their ears; when they walk in the fields and forests, they do so accompanied by the sounds of their favourite bands rather than the birds and bees. 

If you can’t even hear the birds and bees, how on earth do you ever think you’ll be able to hear God?

We walked out of the hall into the cool evening. The stars were out. And as we drove into the silence, we both breathed a sigh of relief. 

Now I can hear, if only I will listen.