Well, it is officially day 14 of my voice being gone ... it has been a
frustrating couple of weeks as I missed being able to preach last Sunday, will miss this Sunday
and have been struggling through times counseling, sharing or even just
talking to people on the phone.
On Monday morning, as I sat in my regular morning spot on the couch
in our living room and opened my Bible, I felt fairly disappointed that
once again I woke up without a voice and I began my time with God by
asking Him what a pastor is supposed to do without a voice?
I turned to
Psalm 29.
It begins with praise to God and then spends most of the rest of the psalm talking about God's
voice. The Psalmist describes a storm moving across the mountains and
into the plains as a metaphor for the voice of God. His voice is a
majestic sound of rolling thunder and flashing lightening that splits
the massive trees of Lebanon, makes mountains skip and shakes the
wilderness and forests bare.
We serve a God with a voice ...
a powerful voice.
The voice if the Lord is
a breaking voice.
The proudest and most stubborn sinner is broken before him when he
speaks. Is my heart broken by my sin? When I see where I am
indifferent to Him and His Word am I broken? Have I been listening to
the voice of God? His voice "breaks the cedars of Lebanon."
The voice of the Lord is
a moving voice. When we think of
steadfastness, strength, and permanence we often think of mountains.
But God's voice causes mountains "to skip like a calf" and "a young
wild ox." There is not a mountain standing in this world that God
cannot move away by His voice; whether, it be mountains of doubt, pain,
hurt, uncertainty or mountains of bitterness and sin, God has only to
speak the word and the firm mountains will skip like a calf.
The voice of God is
a revealing voice. God's revealing voice
can be a voice of judgment as our hearts and our motives, which can be
so easily hidden from others, are made clear by the flash of God's voice
which lays it all bare. It can also be a voice of encouragement as it
cuts through the clouds and darkness and divides our troubles as it
breaks a way for us to Heaven. No matter how thick the forest the voice
of the Lord can be heard ... this is an encouragement when we are
struggling through forests of hurt and pain and it is a word of
challenge when we are hiding in a forest of sin or the outward show of
religion.
As I sit here with no voice I am resting in the amazing truth that
God's voice is powerful! Let's take the time to be in the Word and in
prayer listening for the voice of God. May we be open to the revealing,
moving and breaking of God's voice in the sin of our hearts as we
confess and repent and move forward listening His gentle voice of grace
and forgiveness. May we also rest in the POWERFUL voice of God when we
are surrounded by the noise of doubt, hurt, pain or struggle. Praise
God that His loving voice is more majestic and more powerful than the
seemingly immovable obstacles in our life.
Living by His Grace,
Kaj