Listening

August 10: Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time:

1Kings 19:9, 11-13; Psalm 85:8, 10, 11-12, 13-14; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-32

   

Thoughts to help us surrender to Jesus expressing himself through us in ministry.

“A tiny whispering sound.” 1Kings 19:12

The readings are all about hearing God’s voice—that is, knowing God, because God reveals himself when he speaks.

God spoke to Elijah, not in the power of the hurricane, earthquake or forest fire, but in “a tiny whispering sound.” Some translations say, “a sound of sheer silence.”

The Psalm echoes this: “I will hear what God proclaims—for he proclaims peace… steadfast love and faithfulness.”

God’s voice was in Paul’s “constant anguish of heart” that made him almost wish to be himself “cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people,” if it would bring about their conversion. This was the voice of self-sacrificing love in response to the persecution that eventually killed him.

God spoke most eloquently and definitively in Jesus as he was nailed to the cross: “Father, forgive them….” (Luke 23:34).

God’s words reveal a God of gentleness, peace, “steadfast love and faithfulness”; of forgiveness even as he is being put to death.

We hear his voice when our hearts are listening to silence. We may be in turmoil, tossed about by wind and waves, but when Jesus speaks, it will be with a quiet voice: “Take courage, it is I” (literally, “I AM”—ego eimi—the words he used in John 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am” (see Exodus 3:14).   

God is all power. He is most clearly revealed in its absence.

PRAY: “Lord, let me hear your voice.”

PRACTICE: Learn to listen to silence.