The first question we must ask ourselves is, “Do we WANT to cut through the noise?”  Hold that thought and we’ll get back to it in a moment.

First a little background.  Last week was an unusually busy one for me.  Very little downtime and lots of different commitments throughout the week.  The weekend was spent at a retreat with my church family, and I found myself on a Sunday night with absolutely NO idea for this week’s post.  And I was pretty sure we weren’t revisiting the topic from a few weeks, ago, “When God is Silent!”

It’s now late Monday morning and I finally have a topic for tomorrow.  Let me tell you how it happened because the PROCESS is how God led me to the idea for the week.

You know I always pray and ask God to give me the words he wants me to share week in and week out.  But nearly always, he’s already given me a topic and I’m really just asking him to fill in the meat of the subject.

Not so today.  I came to my office with nothing of my own. I put my head down on my desk and asked God to provide a topic that someone desperately needed to hear. In fact, I asked him for a topic that a LOT of someones needed to hear!  My prayer went on for a few minutes and then…silence.  But this time, it was MY silence.

I needed to stop thinking, stop agonizing, stop the rabbit trails, stop creating posts in my head out of random thoughts and just…be still.  As I emptied my mind of all of that (not a simple process), I figuratively hit that mute button and waited in the quiet of my mind.

Slowly but decisively, this week’s title came to mind.  God was leading me to a subject that required me to live it in that exact moment.  Cutting through the noise. Pretty cool, huh?

Once the title landed, God did, in fact, begin to fill in the heart of what he wanted me to share.  Obviously, I needed this message as much as anyone!

So, let’s look at this idea in greater detail and explore the practical side FIRST this week.  Let’s circle back to my opening question to us all, “Do we WANT to cut through the noise?”

What that’s really asking is whether we are open to hearing what God wants to say to us?  Maybe we’re a bit afraid of what he might tell us, or ask of us.  Maybe our daily noise is a great distraction from that.  Maybe it helps keep us from facing something we dread.  Maybe we don’t think we’ll like his answer.

Maybe we’re simply ignoring God.

I’ll let you all wrestle with that one on your own!  But it is a vital first step in actually cutting through the noise – deciding that you want to.

How do you envision God speaking?  Is it powerfully and triumphantly, in a “no way you can mistake it” kind of way?  For sure, God DOES speak that way sometimes.  When the walls of Jericho came tumbling down with the blast of trumpets and yelling, that was a big bold statement from God.  And when Jesus returns, we’ll engage trumpets again to let the world know that he is back!

But that’s not necessarily how God speaks to us.  Again, a favorite verse comes to mind.  In Psalm 46:10, it says simply, “Be still and know that I am God.”  Sometimes the noise we need to cut through is of our own making.

One of the clearest examples of listening for God comes from 1 Kings 19:11-13.  To set the scene, the prophet Elijah had just called upon God to rain down fire from heaven to consume the water-drenched animal offerings as a display of God’s power, after the false god, Baal, had failed to even show up for his “people.”

Elijah flees the scene, fearing for his life and eventually ends up in a cave.  Here is God’s conversation with Elijah.

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.  And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Of course, God can speak through winds and earthquakes and fire.  But he chose to speak to Elijah during one of his darkest days, not through all that power, but through a low whisper.  THAT is how Elijah heard from God.  And it’s very likely how you and I will hear God’s voice as well.  But you can’t hear a whisper when your life is full of noise.

So just what does this have to do with our biblical transformational series?

Well, first of all, the sheer quantity and variety of challenges you are all struggling with is broader than I can ever imagine.  Perhaps you are battling with the topics of the first three posts – loneliness, struggling with the “what ifs,” or finding God’s peace.  If so, I hope you found some helpful scripture texts and practical ideas.

But perhaps God wants you to know how to approach him with your own private, personal struggles.  Something I don’t end up addressing here.  Training yourself to sit quietly and prayerfully before God with your own unique set of challenges, and then sensing his direction is one of the most powerful encounters a Christian can experience.

Secondly, while listening for God’s voice isn’t the same as finding an applicable scripture text…  Wait, yes, it is!  The Bible is God’s Word to us.  Literally his voice recorded through the ages and vital to our Christian walk.

When you get a sense of what God is directing you towards or away from, that’s also his voice.  The source is the same.  And the power to transform is the same.

In the simplest of terms, the first three posts in this series were essentially “fish” to help nourish you.  This post, by contract, is teaching you how to fish.

True confessions.  In my earlier prayer, I also asked God if he could get this post taken care of this morning as I had some other commitments this afternoon.  Guess what?  The clock just hit 12 noon.  Again, how cool is that!?

No long list of scripture texts this week. Today it’s less about scouring scripture for a certain topic and more about quieting your heart before God so you don’t miss his word to you.

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Jeremiah 33:3