As a teacher I swore I had “supersonic” hearing and could tell what the kid all the way across the room was whispering to his neighbor. Sometimes to their surprise I’d even join in the conversation. On the Race I had two male teammates. Their voices were so deep that often I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Maybe their words were muffled by the glorious beards all World Race men seemed to grow, maybe I was losing my touch, or maybe I was just getting older I thought.
This morning at church the pastor taught on 1 Samuel 3 when Samuel hears a voice in the night. Three times he thinks the voice is his master Eli beckoning him. “Here I am,” he says. But what Samuel didn’t realize is that the voice belonged to the Lord. The pastor went on to say the Bible asks us to have childlike faith. When we are young we have big ideas and radical dreams. As we reach adulthood the bills start to pile up, those ideas and dreams tend to die.
There is a certain frequency that only young people can hear. You have a certain amount of time to hear it. And 10 years from not you won’t be able to hear what you can hear right now. As we get older, be are no as attune to the frequency we can hear when we’re young.
He told a story about a store owner whose clientele was older wealthier persons but was distraught by the amount of teenagers who would hang around outside its doors deterring customers from entering. After some research, he discovered the teens could hear very high pitched noises, while the older shoppers could not and installed speakers outside the store to get rid of the pesky teens.
The pastor concluded the story by asking the congregation to stand to their feet. At the count of three, anyone who could hear the sound played over the loud speaker was asked to come to the front of the auditorium. 1, 2, 3… I heard an unpleasant high pitched ringing noise (See if you can hear it.) As I made my way to the front of the crowd I looked around me. The majority of those walking forward seemed to be teenagers. With an occasional young adult here and there.
As the pastor prayed over the crowd I was thankful that I could hear the noise, that amidst the craziness of life I still hear the Father’s voice!
Do you hear His voice? What is He saying to you about those big ideas and radical dreams from youth?
