In my striving to be conscious of God and to hear His voice and walk with Him, I slowly learned that I do not get the Lord to speak simply by striving to listen. Nor is He always speaking and I hear or get to hear bits and pieces only as I succeed in efforts to “tune in” like a ham operator trying to pick up a frequency. No, the Lord speaks when it pleases Him, and when He speaks, He is fully capable of making Himself heard with or without any help or hindrance from us.
Until we are humbled and repent of our arrogance, we will neither understand nor rest.
Standing atop a mountain peak,
I could not hear a sound.
In vain I strained my ears to hear
But nothing came except a tear
Because I could not hear.
Cold it grew and I withdrew
To lower levels not by choice,
And there I felt more comforted
But silence remained the only voice
And still I could not hear.
“Am I dead?” in pain I asked myself,
“Is there something wrong with me?
I should think that on these wondrous heights
Is where hearing and seeing ought to be.”
And down I came again.
Lower and lower and lower still,
Not even ground level was to be my fill,
But lower and lower and lower ’til
The darkness smothered me out of sight
And my only friends were sorrow and fright.
But I was not alone.
For in the nether of darkness and tether,
Down where I had made my bed,
And where I resigned to live and sleep,
I heard the Voice instead:
“Come up!” It said, “and into the Light.
Rejoice now with new hearing and sight.
I’ll take away your tether and fright
And you’ll be My servant instead.”
Albuquerque, Spring, 1984