In the Echoes
God speaks in echoes.
I’ve said it many times before, and I lived it out this past weekend. While you were gathering together for worship, commissioning our Mission Washington Team and being blessed by JR Gardner’s message of A Kingdom Not of This World , I was up in Canada at my family’s church, hearing a message from… Psalm 27.
If you recall, I referenced Psalm 27 in last week’s Build UP, partly because it’s central to a book I’m reading The Soul of Desire, by Curt Thompson.
As I sat in the sanctuary and the pastor got up to preach… a huge smile crept across my face. Because once again, God was directing me towards this particular chapter in scripture. And I had to ask, God… what are you saying to me?
I can’t say that this question would be top of my mind throughout my life. In the past, I may have chalked it up to coincidence. But over the years, I’ve learned that God speaks in echoes.
You see, I don’t often hear it the first time. Or the second. Or the third. So… God just keeps on speaking, quietly, consistently, persistently even.
Those echoes, the soft, quiet voice of God showing up in different places, echoing the same message – like a finger plucking at the same string on my heart, reverberating through my soul – takes some work to be attuned to. And when I’m going 90 miles an hour, piling my plate so high I can’t see over it – I’m unlikely going to recognize. But in slowing down, in speaking less, in doing less and just paying attention and being curious, all of the sudden, I notice what I hadn’t noticed before. God speaking.
Psalm 27 ends the encouraging note Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord – and few messages could be more perfect, more timely, more attuned to my heart’s need than that one.
And so I ask you, what are the echoes of God’s voice that have been reverberating in your heart recently? What words or phrases or feelings or impressions or… people seem to keep showing up? And what… do you think God might be whispering to you through them?
Welcoming You to Grow in Jesus, one echo at a time,
Pastor Don