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THE STILL SMALL VOICE

Biblical Text: 1 Kings 19:12

A pastor once told the story of a man who lived near a busy train station. Every night, the trains would roar past his house…horns blaring, tracks shaking, windows rattling. He got so used to the noise that he barely noticed it anymore.

One evening, his young granddaughter came to visit. As they sat in the living room, she suddenly whispered, “Grandpa… do you hear that?” He paused. He listened. He strained his ears. “I don’t hear anything,” he said. She smiled and pointed toward the window. “Listen again.” He leaned in…and this time he heard it: a tiny cricket chirping in the bushes outside. He shook his head and said, “Baby, how did you hear that with all this noise?” She shrugged and said, “I was listening for it.”

God’s voice is rarely in the earthquake…Rarely in the fire…Rarely in the wind. Most often, it’s in the whisper…not because God is weak, but because God is close. The problem is not that God isn’t speaking. The problem is that we’ve gotten used to the noise. God whispers because His presence is closer than the noise that surrounds us.

That’s the beauty of Lent, too. It’s the season where we turn down the volume of life so we can finally hear the whisper that been there all along. Prayer, solitude, fasting…these are not religious chores. They are ways of quieting the soul so we can say: “I’m listening for You, Lord!” God doesn’t shout to compete with the world. He whispers to invite us closer.