After being involved in children’s ministries for years, I have grown accustomed to embarking on a bizarre quest in search of some unique prop or a captivating teaching aid to drive home a lesson to my students. This week’s search was no less interesting. In preparation for an upcoming Christmas play, I found myself on an internet odyssey, hunting for the perfect megaphone to be used to amplify the voice of one of the actresses. A megaphone, sometimes referred to as a bullhorn, is a cone-shaped device used to magnify a person’s voice (or sound) and to direct it in a given direction. The etymology of the word is uncomplicated, a combination of the Greek words megas, meaning great, and phone meaning voice, simply put, a megaphone is a GREAT BIG VOICE! As I searched for the needed prop, God used that amplifying apparatus to convict His child’s heart.
Don’t you just love those BIG Bible stories, those wondrous moments when God speaks with His BIG voice, when He makes His will, His power, and His purpose unmistakably clear. We serve a God who is not limited to natural phenomena when He speaks. He can announce His presence by an earthquake, communicate through a whirlwind, or speak in a voice that sounds like thunder. I like that…clear, distinct, unmistakable…no ‘gray area’ there. But because He is THE omnipotent, awesomely powerful God, He is not confined to a single manner of communication with His children. And most often, the megaphone is not His chosen method of communication.
After Elijah had won a decisive victory in his battle with the prophets of Baal, he quickly learned that the wicked Queen Jezebel was seeking to kill him in an vicious act of revenge. The exhilaration experience on that mountain of victory was soon replaced by the desperation of the valley of fear, as Elijah fled into the wilderness where he collapsed in exhaustion and depression. Where was his BIG God? Why did He remain silent? An angel was dispatched to nourish and revitalize God’s servant with “a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head,” giving this weary prophet the strength to travel for an additional forty days and nights. Ultimately, the prophet of God finds shelter in a cave at Horeb…alone, afraid, spiritually and physically spent…and more than eager to voice his complaint to God. “I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts…and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” In reply, God sends a mighty wind which shatters the rocks into pieces, an earthquake that shakes the mountain, and a fire that lights up the sky…BIG things…but God’s voice was in none of them. God was still silent. After all of that supernatural display, the Lord communicates with His child through a “still, small voice,” the gentle whisper of God.
The work of God need not always be accompanied by dramatic revelation or wondrous manifestations. Nor does divine silence necessarily indicate divine inactivity. We are blessed to live in the age of grace, a moment in time when we have direct access to the spoken Word of God. We are privileged to serve a “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” He speaks to us! How awesome, yet humbling of a thought that is! We have at our disposal everything we need for every situation, for our God whispers to us most clearly through His Word. The more we learn it, ingest it, meditate upon it, the more prepared we will be to recognize His voice when He speaks, and the more likely we will be to respond to His Word in submission and obedience.
Unfortunately, I can be a stubborn child, and God sometimes has to use His megaphone to capture my attention. The world can be so blatantly noisy and distracting at times, pulling me away from my Father and His will for my life. God help me to be so attuned to Your Word and Your Spirit that the gentleness of the whisper of Your voice summons me into Your presence. I desire to hear that “still, small voice,” as Your Spirit, through Your Word, guides and directs my life.
Hebrews 1:1,2 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;