Seek Him in the Ambient Noise

A few mornings ago, I said something aloud that clearly was uttered from my inner (wo)man. I spoke the words, “I hear you in the ambient noise.” During my devotion I keep tools and resources around me for any potential downloads from on high. Immediately I looked up ambient noise. Here is one of the best explanations, interestingly enough from Bose: “Ambient noise comes at you from all directions and at all frequencies. At the high end of these daily background sounds are things like air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, and police sirens; while the low end includes running water, large fans and motor engines.” It went on to say, “All can impact you in negative ways, breaking your concentration, increasing stress and impairing critical thinking.” My God! I could have laid out then - but I was in fact driven to sit and ponder the message that the Holy Spirit ushered so early and deliberate in the morning. Regardless of the chatter from our neighbor in the building next door, or the POTUS in the house on Pennsylvania Avenue, we must purpose ourselves to seek the voice of God! No matter what rhetoric is being spewed and the carriers of such that aid and abet, the truth of a loving, powerful, redemptive, all knowing and wise God prevails and He does not forget nor neglect His children. God does not sleep nor slumber and is unbothered by the chaotic sounds that suggest to permeate the earth; instead He permeates and perfects our peace to be sustained. Yet we cannot neglect seeking His voice. We must engage our own “noise cancelling” techniques to find Him amidst whatever doesn’t align with who He is. When you hear hate, seek His peace. When you hear defeat, seek His triumph. When you hear sadness, seek His joy. When you hear brokenness, seek His wholeness. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:39).

The ambient noise doesn’t appear to be going away. In fact, the decimals are higher than we desire. Over time, without persevering toward Christ, the weight and stress of what we “hear” can take a toll on our bodies, our minds and our spirits. That is why God so deliberately admonishes us to cast our cares upon Him and walk in the liberty gifted to us. If we don’t engage our own practice of seeking the voice of God and what He has for us, we can get swept up in what was never meant to consume us. Let us not allow the ambient noise to break us. If in fact we are to carry out the assignments God expects and has entrusted us with, we must seek His voice daily and be as leaned into it as the ice cream truck three blocks away. As a child whatever we were doing didn’t prevent us from hearing the jingle, begging our parents for money and narrowly escaping a broken limb running down the stairs and running the race of an olympian to reach the truck. That is the type of energy we need to exude to get to a place to hear from God. And trust me, from experience, He is better than a bomb pop, a push-up or a dreamsickle.

Let’s look for ways to hear God amidst the ambient noise this week. I promise He’s there.