Scripture
I heard an unknown voice say,
6“Now I will take the load from your shoulders;
I will free your hands from their heavy tasks.
7You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you;
I answered out of the thundercloud
and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah.
Interlude
Psalm 81:5-6
Observation
God is always talking. He wants to commune with His creation and have a relationship with us. The problem is often that we aren’t listening. Three times in this Psalm God points out that His people are not listening. Asaph, the worship leader and singer that penned this Psalm served King David and King Solomon and yet even he is unfamiliar with God’s voice. He writes, “I heard an unknown voice say…” Some scholars believe Asaph is referring to when Moses heard the voice of God from the burning bush in Exodus 3 and didn’t know who he was talking to. God has a way of getting our attention when we aren’t paying attention. He will talk to us and connect to our hearts in any number of ways through any means necessary. Moses was just trying to find a wayward sheep and find water for his flock. He was busy doing his job, but God was about to change his life forever. Dry brush would often catch on fire in the desert sun, but to be on fire and not be consumed that was something Moses had to investigate. “When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from out of the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ (Exodus 3:4) Remember young Samuel who thought he was being called by the priest Eli, but the whole time it was God himself? Samuel didn’t recognize God’s voice even though he had been serving him. What was Samuel’s response to the unknown voice? “Speak, your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10).
Application
What if this is how I walked out every day? What if I lived in a place of expectation that God was going to speak to me? I have served the Lord and followed Jesus and have been a student of His Word for years. What if I haven’t even scratched the surface of learning to hear God’s voice? What if I’ve been too busy writing songs and sermons, chasing sheep down in the desert, and fulfilling duties in the temple? What the world needs to hear is the promise He spoke to Asaph, to Moses, to Samuel, “Now I will take the load from your shoulders; I will free your hands from their heavy tasks.” This always has been and always will be God’s heart and He has chosen to communicate to and through cracked vessels like me throughout history. I don’t want to be like the people of Israel who completely missed the Messiah speaking right in front of them because they didn’t recognize His voice. Jesus never said what they expected Him to in the way they expected Him to when they expected Him to they assumed He was demon-possessed. He had the very words of life and they couldn’t hear it as anything but Jesus gibberish. God may choose to answer me from the thundercloud or the burning bush. He may be testing us through the pandemic and seeking to speak to us through the fires. His heart isn’t in these hardships but he is speaking to us through them. Will we listen? I find myself listening to news feeds and opinions and what I really need to do is train my ear to listen to Him.
Prayer
It’s 9/12. 19 years ago the world stopped in the ashes of the terrorist attacks and cried out to You. It didn’t last long, but we were humbled and positioned ourselves to seek you. I come in that humility this morning. I join with Asaph, Moses, and Samuel this morning and when I say, “Speak, your servant is listening.” No matter how, when, where You want to speak I position my heart to hear You. Whether in the joyful or painful I choose to listen for Your voice. I repent for being so busy and not paying attention to what You are saying. You alone have the words of life.
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