Silencing The Voice

Can you hear me? I AM The Voice

I AM The Voice that calms the sea, I AM The One that smoothes ruffled feathers, and settles souls. Can you hear me? I will open your ears if you are having troubles hearing what I am saying. Perhaps I will clap your ears hard with thunder, and shock your eyes with jagged flashes of lightning, that threaten destruction. I may break massive tree limbs and snap ancient trunks too, to get your attention. Does my invisible, powerful arm, frighten you when storm interrupts your comings and goings, your doings out there, outside of your tiny abode, that you trust to shelter you from what you cannot control? Do you call out to me, Make it stop, when torrential rain slants in sheets in your direction?

I shout, I speak, I whisper. Can you, hear me?

Once upon a time, children played outside, never wanting the sun to go down, never wanting the day to end. You will come in when the street lights come on, some parents demanded. Sometimes, a parent would call out a name, or two, or even three, depending on how many their offspring: Come home, Julie, Janice, Bronco, Jill, John, Paul, Lori, Antonella, Linda, Patricia ... time to come home. Some of the kids got to stay out past the lighting of the street lamps; some of us knew that if we did not return home, once our parent called out the front door, their would be hell to pay for our disobedience. Each child knew his or her own mothers/fathers voice. We did not answer to other parental voices, we answered to the parents that we belonged to: we were children, of mothers and fathers, each going our separate ways, into our separate homes. 

Can you, dear reader, hear your Father's voice? There are two fathers, and each child hears the one, or the other, when they are called. We cannot help but heed our Father, or our father, as it were. We belong to One, or the other. When we silence one voice, the other gets louder. In once upon a time, my mother's verbal insistence, my father's undeniable command, were clear, crisp, and irresistible. To ignore them was folly, and foolishness; they knew what children are want to know in their naïveté and innocence, namely, that they can get lost, or stolen away, when the light dims and darkness invades. 

I wax nostalgic, longing for the sweetness of days gone-by, when not knowing what lurks and leers in the shadows gave a false sense of security. Learning of the inner workings of those that answer to their diabolical father, is frightfully and gut wrenchingly repulsive. It is difficult to stomach the hard-wiring of the wicked, that renders them capable of grotesque acts of cruelty ... they hear a voice, and do the bidding of their daddy the devil, and it does not phase them at all. Conversely, those that hear and heed The Father, can also hear the bleating and baahhhing of his sheep, and my God in heaven, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the lambs of the flock that fill my life with sweet peace that surpasses all understanding!  

John 10:27-28

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand

This morning, I am grateful, for all the good and godly people I have been blessed by my Father to associate with, even when the encounters are brief, via a service they provide, or one I get to provide for them. There are many voices, dear reader, but their is only One that really matters, and when you hear and heed him, he will call you to your heavenly home, where there is no need for street lights or lamps, because you will live in the eternal light of the Son: 

John 14:2

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you

Jesus has gone before us to his Father's house to prepare a place for his adopted children. Only those that hear The Voice of the Good Shepherd, will be called to their heavenly abode, forever provided for, and protected from, all that is wicked in this world. 

Can you, dear reader, hear The Voice?