This morning’s Band of Brother’s gathering was about NEUTRALIZING the NOISE between us and God. I never know how a topic will hit the men that show up…this one seemed to hit home with many of us. Here is the short version.
We live in a very noisy world, full of audio and visual stimulation. We had a quick texting discussion and heard from guys whose kids send 5, 50, 100, even up to 600 texts…per day! I recently had to intervene with my 14 year old niece as she sent texts back and forth with her boyfriend while we ate Thanksgiving dinner!
But it is not just kids, right? The first thing I do when I get into my car is turn on my radio or iPod. I can be found "vegging" in front of the TV just like the next guy.
Here is the video we watched this morning to introduce the topic:
The Bible speaks clearly of the need to be "still or silent" and the need to "rest" (Psalm 4:4, Psalm 46:10, Habakkuk 2:20, Matthew 11:28-30, etc.). In Psalm 46:10 for example, God tell us to:
Be still and know that I am God.
Part of our discussion this morning centered around this verse, and what it really says to us. Could it be that God is saying something like "turn everything else off and focus on Me. Until then, I’ll be quiet. I’m not going to compete with all the other noise you surround yourself with." Perhaps the intended message includes God telling us: "You don’t want Me to use My loud voice!"
I know I often say to my boys, "look at me when I’m talking to you". Why do I do that? I know that even if they can hear my voice while watching TV, reading or playing video games, they can’t hear what I’m really saying if they are distracted with those other things. God knows we cannot speak and listen to Him at the same time. We can’t worry and listen to Him at the same time. We can’t saturate ourselves with noise of the world and listen to Him at the same time. We can’t focus on ourselves and listen to Him at the same time.
We pride ourselves on "multi-tasking", but usually that means we don’t do ANY of the tasks very well.
Here are some questions to ask yourself on this topic:
- Why is it so hard to be silent? Why is talking so much easier?
- How much noise to I voluntarily subject myself to?
- Does my life look like I want to hear from God?
- What is one thing I could could do to eliminate some of the noise from my life?
How about you? How challenging is it for you to be quiet before God? How have you been successful in being quiet in the past?
