Incline Your Ear

Do you feel like your voice is heard above all the noise?

I've really struggled with this one. As an enneagram 4 with a 3 wing (I know, nerd-alert), I long to be authentically known, seen, and heard. I long to have a voice in the things that matter to me. Whenever I feel silenced, or drowned out by other voices, I get insecure. I start to question, will I really matter in this world if the world can't hear my voice? This gets all jumbled up in my vocation too - as a singer and a worship leader, the voice is essential. Whenever I get sick and can't sing, it breaks something in me. I feel useless. If there's a particular issue we feel strongly about, but the powers that be aren't really listening, we can even start to feel like our voices don't really matter. That's when sin and anxiety try to creep in and speak for us.

Sin is wanting to mute everyone else so that we alone can be heard. This works great for Zoom meetings (efficiency-minded introverts, unite!). But obviously, we can't do real life like that, although I know we can all think of times when we wished there was a mute button on someone (Lord, check my heart!).

Anxiety is listening to all the noise...cranking up the volume, toggling back and forth between each voice, drowning out your own negative thoughts until your eardrums can barely withstand the decibels. You feel like you have to scream in order to hear your own voice above it all. It's too much, yet somehow never enough, and it can be paralyzing.

In this season, I've experienced both of these things many, many times. But God is showing me the beauty of things quiet and hidden. He's reminding me that I always have an audience with Him. 

Making Space

I think the secret to hearing and being heard is found in silence. In the spaces between, the periodic rests written into each measure of life's score, there's something waiting to be discovered. A place that makes you take a breath, pause, and listen ever more intently...because the quiet still communicates something. I think of the double bass in a jazz trio: The steady rhythm, the twinkle of the melody on piano, and the light buzz of brushes hitting the snare in 3 suddenly make space for surprisingly soft yet virtuosic bass solos that bring a hush over the room...and then everyone is looking up from their cocktails and appetizers, pausing conversations and listening to what's happening. The sudden onset of quiet has woken them up to the music.

Some of the moments I've seen people open up their lives more, little by little (including myself) have been in spaces where the other person - the listener - leaned into the silence instead of trying to fill it. Leaving space for someone to process, whether externally or with no words, creates a safety net...a kind of trust that requires us to humbly silence our own voices for longer than may feel comfortable.

If I'm going to do this for and with people, I need to do this with God's Word too. Instead of reading and immediately applying my own interpretation, I find my most engaging times with the Lord have been the ones where I just sat and read and tried to let the words speak for themselves, letting the Holy Spirit tune my heart to God's own voice in that space. Now, I want to be clear: I have never heard actual audible voices from the Lord in these moments. If there's anyone out there who believes they have that ability, I would love to talk to that person and learn their story. But God does speak in still small ways. We just have to be willing to silence everything else, including ourselves, and incline our ear.

The God Who Hears

Recently a dear friend of mine reached out and reminded me of the story in Genesis 16 about Hagar. You may recall, Hagar was a bondservant to Sarah, the wife of Abraham, who up to this point had been unable to conceive a child of her own. Desperate to have children, she sends Hagar to Abraham in hopes that she would conceive for her. When Hagar does get pregnant, things become heated in Sarah and Hagar's relationship, and Hagar flees to a well in the wilderness.

My friend told me how interesting it was that in Hagar's silent solitude, God meets her and commands her to name her son Ishmael, which means "the God who hears." Yet in her worshipful response, she praises him as "the God who sees." She even names the well, where God spoke to her, "Beer-lahai-roi" which means "the well of the Living One who sees me" (Genesis 16:14, ESV footnote). The fact that God saw her, my friend pointed out, was actually more powerful to Hagar because he met her in the unspoken, silent pain, when she wasn't even crying out to him, and gave her a promise.

He is the God who hears and sees. We have a captive audience with our Father, even when actual words cannot express our true condition. The Bible says the Spirit intercedes on our behalf with a groaning too deep for words, and that before a word is upon our lips, he knows our every thought (Romans 8:26, Psalm 139:4). He hears us and knows us even when we can't speak for ourselves.

Then like Hagar, out of the silence, out of the listening and knowing we are seen and heard by our Father - we can SING. We can lift our voices in praise because we know we are heard, and we know He is also speaking. We therefore know He has not left us alone to muddle through the mess of our days and struggle to raise our voices above the noise. We have an Audience who is always captivated by us, and longs to hear our voices raised up in prayer and praise to Him.

Incline Your Ear

What would it look like if our presence with people made them feel a little more like that? How can we reflect this attribute of God to one another in this time of isolation and noise?

Lean into the silence. Incline your ear - first to God's voice, then to the voices of others. Listen to someone else's story. Resist the urge to give advice or words of condolence and just look someone in the eye and listen to what they're saying. Or...give the space and the freedom to not have to say anything at all, and just be seen.

And above all, know that your voice is heard and your heart is seen, in both the chaos of the noise and the solitude of silence.

For God's glory,

Kayla

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