Holy Earplugs

There’s a song that I love and has been playing in my head for a while. It’s called “I Need A Word” by Smokie Norful. Here’s a small excerpt.

Oh, I need a word

Tell me which way to turn

I need a word

Tell me which way I should go

I need a word

To tell me just what to do

Please send a word

God, I need to hear from You

Drown out the noise

Let me hear Your voice

I need a word from You

Currently I’ve been chewing on the line “drown out the noise”. I have been asking God for direction, wisdom; a word from Him. However, I admit part of the reason I may not be getting it is my inability to drown out the noise.

Our world is so noisy that true silence is actually hard to come by. It is also difficult at times to unplug from the noise we create or can control. I think we struggle a lot with this because true silence can be uncomfortable. We’ve grown accustomed to having some type of sound always going. Additionally what if I did stop and try to hear God in the silence, and not hear anything? What if we put ourselves out there and it backfires? Let me say, God focused silence is never wasted. Time spent with God is never wasted. David says in Psalms 84:10 “Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere...” A moment with God is better than a thousand moments somewhere else.

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This morning as I continued to think on drowning out the noise, I came up with a plan. I set the timer on my phone and decided for those 30 seconds I would close my eyes and be still. I wouldn’t fidget with my phone, look out the window, and I wouldn’t go over my to do list. I would try as best I could to shut off all distractions and just wait on Him. 30 seconds went by and I thought “I need more.” I reset the timer for a minute and a half. Halfway through I was listening more to my kids going haywire in their room than staying focused on God. Time for modifications! I wasn’t giving up. I didn’t give up. I got earplugs!

I put earplugs in my ears and finally, silence. I set my timer for 2 minutes, closed my eyes, and took deep and steady breaths. Lo and behold, God spoke! It was brief and not what I wanted to hear! Though, who says God is required to only give me what makes me feel good? God is a truth deliverer and sometimes the truth hurts. Nevertheless not everything that “hurts” us or makes us uncomfortable, is bad.

Moreover another wonderful thing came out of my silence experiment, I heard what was in my spirit versus my soul. Briefly, our soul is made of our mind, will, and emotions. Our soul can be misleading because how we currently feel and what we currently think, isn’t always true or correct. However our spirit, reflects the nature of God.

Romans 8:16 says “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

‭The Holy Spirit connects with our spirit and reveals truth. As I sat in silence with my dollar store earplugs in, I heard truth. Repeating over and over I heard in my spirit “Great is the Lord in all the earth”. Now did that come out of nowhere? No. Psalms 8:1 says “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!...” How majestic or how great is the Lord (His name) in all the earth. My spirit spoke truth brought to me by the Spirit which will ALWAYS align with and validate the word of God!!! Awesome! Our soul may contradict the word of God but, our spirit does not.

Even still had I not “heard” anything, I already felt calmer and more peaceful in my attempts before getting the earplugs. God comes to bring us peace not chaos, peace not anxiety, peace not uncertainty. He can definitely use our emotions to get our attention but in general, time with God calms our inner man.

I challenge you to take the earplug plunge! Dare to drown out the noise and see what happens. Maybe you’ll get the answer you’ve been waiting for. Maybe you won’t. Yet again, time spent waiting on God is never a waste.