In my pastor’s message a couple of Sundays ago, he told what happens when the voice of God is rare in one’s life – when one becomes so insensitive to God’s voice that he rarely, if ever, hears it. There are two things that happen:
1. we become indifferent
2. we let our minds grab on to other things – destructive things
Being insensitive made me think of the word callous. The the dictionary definition of callous goes along with what my pastor was talking about. When I am calloused toward God, I am insensitive. I am not quickly and easily responsive to or aware of God.
When I am calloused toward God, I am indifferent. I am apathetic. I am disinterested in God. He does not matter to me one way or another. He is not important to me.
When I am calloused toward God I am no longer affected by my relationship with Him.
I get a callous on my skin as a result from my skin being exposed to friction, like when my toes rub up against the end of my shoes when I am running. My heart becomes calloused toward God when I am in friction (contention) with Him. My heart becomes hardened when my ideas and desires conflict with His ideas and desires. And it’s as if all the fighting against what God wants for me creates chaos inside me and it creates a bunch of noise that makes me unable to hear God. So, the more friction there is, the harder my heart becomes and the louder the noise becomes. I can’t feel Him or sense Him any longer.
But I don’t cease to exist. And my needs that I was created with (love and purpose) don’t cease to exist either. Nor does the purpose I was created for. By in my calloused state and the chaos it produces I am confused. And because I can no longer sense God, I end up grabbing on to all sorts of other things that I think will give me the abundant life I was created to have a longing for.
The voice of God is still and small. He doesn’t use a PA system up in the clouds to talk to me down here. He doesn’t send me texts, letters, or emails. And He is most definitely not on Facebook. His voice is one that can only be heard when I am still and quiet. When I am soft and open.
The dictionary definition of callous gives the word unsympathetic as part of the definition. Looking up the definition for unsympathetic led me to the definition for sympathetic. And the physics definition for sympathetic was,
“noting or pertaining to vibrations or sounds, etc., produced by a body as the direct result of similar vibrations in a different body.” So that made me think of it this way…
My heart needs to be in such a condition (uncalloused) so that the vibrations (movements – deeds) and sounds (words) I am producing are the direct result of His similar vibrations and sounds. And this can only happen when I am sensitive to Him.
My life should be lived out as a response to who He is.
I Kings 19:12 The Lord was not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. He was a still small voice.