Hearing the Voice of God

Do you remember when you were a kid and you got those walkie talkies for Christmas.  What was the first things you would do?  Press the button and say can you hear me?  Then you would start moving farther and farther apart, checking to see how good they really worked and how far apart you could be from one another and still hear each other.  Can you hear me now?

It was exciting to hear your brother or sister, mom or dad, or even a friend from around the corner or down the street when you could no longer see each other.  And once you found the breaking distance, the point in which the voice no longer came in clear, you would start to walk back towards each other, closer to one another until the voices once again were clear.

Bigger toys for bigger boys right: (pull out cell phone)

Things really haven’t changed that much.  Perhaps you remember those early Verizon commercials:  Can you hear me now?

When you are talking on your phone and the call starts to drop, what do you do?  First, you look at the phone to see if there is still a connection.  If there is, you begin to move around a little bit.   If you happen to be driving, you might wait a second or two and then start saying, can you hear me.

When we are connected to someone through a walkie talkie or even one of these, it is frustrating when the signal is not clear and what the other person is saying is jumbled up or just plain drops such that the message, they are intending to share is unable to be discerned or even heard at all. 

When this happens, we move, hoping that the signals which we don’t really understand will somehow reconnect and will once again become clear so that we can reconnect and engage in the relationship that these devices enable us to enjoy.

What if there were devices that would allow you to hear the voice of God, would you use them?  And if you did and the voice of God started growing faint, becoming broken up, or dropping out altogether, would you be willing to move, to make some adjustments so that God’s voice would again be clear, that you could engage in the relationship that these devices enable you to enjoy?  

In our Gospel text this morning, Jesus clearly states that “His sheep will hear His voice”.