“Hello … hello … anybody there? … uh, hello?”
The voice sounded strange, muffled, and like it was coming from underneath me.
I was baffled for a few moments until I realized it was coming from my new phone, which I’d grabbed and stuffed under my hindquarters when it started ringing in the middle of the prayer group meeting I was attending.
I’d forgotten to turn off my phone before the group began, thereby becoming that person—you know, the one in nearly every gathering who interrupts the flow with the annoying sound of his or her raucous ringtone.
Why didn’t I simply turn off my phone off as soon as it started ringing in my purse? Because I forgot how, that’s why. It was a new phone and I hadn’t yet mastered its functions.
When it started ringing, I unsuccessfully fumbled with the buttons for a moment and then did the only thing I could think to do—I stuffed the phone underneath me, counting on my plenteous fat cells to adequately muffle the sound.
It didn’t work.
Even worse, I somehow managed to accidentally answer the ringing phone while sitting on it. I would never have guessed my derriere could perform such a task. Apparently I have skills I knew not of.
“Hello … hello … is anybody there? Hello?” the voice persisted.
It reminded me of a scene in the old horror movie, “The Fly,” when Vincent Price’s mad scientist character accidentally turns himself into a fly, gets stuck in a spider web and starts creepily calling out, “help me … help me.”
I hoped against hope that the little voice from my phone would stop before any of the other ladies noticed. But, of course, that’s not what happened.
I peeked around and saw one giggling woman, and another, and another.
My predicament, while distracting, at least prompted the therapeutic release of many endorphins that afternoon.
It also reminded me of the lengths we’ll go to try to silence persistent voices we don’t want to hear.
Sadly, the voice most often resisted is probably the voice of God.
Do I actually believe God talks to us? In a word: yep—most often through what is written in His Word, the Bible.
But those who are truly disciples of Jesus Christ occasionally also experience God guiding and instructing them in other ways as well.
“Your ears will hear a word behind you, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or to the left,” God says in Isaiah 30:12.
And Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27).
Of course, there are many important caveats to consider. God never leads us to do anything that is contrary to what He’s already said in the Bible or inconsistent with His character, as explained and expressed in His Word.
It sometimes seems most of the world is determined to try to squash God down into the couch cushions and stifle His voice as He persistently, lovingly calls us to come into relationship with Him, and calls those who know Him to live like they know Him.
We may tune God out for a time, but ultimately, He can’t and won’t be silenced or ignored.
The day is coming when every eye will see Him, every ear will hear Him, and every knee will bow to Him.
How we listen and obey now will determine what He says to us on that day.
I don’t know about you, but I long to hear Him say, “’Well done, good and faithful servant. … Enter into the joy of your master.’” (Matthew 25:23)