White Noise

 Living water

This piece was written by my good friend and Prayer Warrior, Ashley Blackburn

The world is full of white noise and that is where most people find their home.  We live in the business of life, which is a constant white noise with no clear message, no direction and no meaning.  With this it seems that God is silent.

In this home, there is no stillness because we have no time for it.  We run about, in a constant state of movement, from one place to another, from one conversation to the next.  This constant movement creates heat which energizes and keeps us going in this state.  It is impossible to come to a sudden stop in this home for if we do we will burn up from the amount of heat our constant movement has created.

We feel overwhelmed, pulled in many directions, over-scheduled, and out of control.  We feel that our life is being lived for us, that our commitments have swallowed us up and we are stuck. We are no longer living our lives, we no longer have time or energy to do anything other than what the world tells us we need to do.

All the while, God is there, as a gentle breeze, whispering the truths of his Kingdom.  The richness of his message does not change for there is only one truth.  But when we are living in the white noise, we are unable to hear the message of the truth. The white noise drowns out the truth and we end up getting bits and pieces, without the full revelation.  With this, the message is tainted and becomes lukewarm.  While the fullness of the truth is cool and refreshing to the soul.

But God in his infinite mercy, plants seeds deep within us.  They are buried in the deepest depth of our soul and there they are protected.  The seeds begin to germinate and grow.  They become that tug on our heart that reminds us that this is not all there is, that we were created for much more.  As the seed grows and begins to penetrate through us, we begin to hunger and thirst. This hunger and thirst is often something we can’t quite explain or understand, but we know that it is there. We can ignore the tug, which will be the ultimate end to the seed for it will eventually die of lack of nourishment and the white noise will continue and eventually take over our lives completely.  Or we can choose to nourish the seed, cultivating it and allowing God to plant more seeds within us, which will slow down the constant movement of our lives and lead us into the stillness with God, into the classroom of contemplation.

God so loves us that he does not completely turn off the white noise in our lives, for that would throw us into a state of chaos.  Likewise, he doesn’t throw freezing water on us to cool us from the heat of our constant movement.  Instead, he gently cools us just enough to be refreshing, knowing that we will desire more. He only turns down the white noise just a bit in order for us to hear a portion of the Truth in order to draw us to know more and more. Then once we begin our journey and take that first step toward him and away from the world, he slowly tugs more and more at our hearts, eventually leading us into full communion with him.

This explains the two movements.  The first movement is one of gentleness, while in the second God is revealed in his fullness.  For the fullness of God cannot be heard amongst the white noise.  It won’t be understood.  The first is refreshing to the soul.  It calls the soul to turn away from the world and toward the face of Christ.  It puts a hunger and thirst deep within us that can only be filled with his presence. With this the soul is drawn to the fount of living water for it refreshes the soul. The living water that gives true joy and lasting peace.  And the crowning moment is when the soul, utterly convinced of God’s merciful love, chooses with its own free will to follow Jesus.  Our choices define who are, so the work of God never takes away our power to choose Him.  He instead works in the stillness and leads us to our own choosing.