We live constantly surrounded by the sound of more voices than we can count, not just “social media” that we now want to blame for all the world’s ills, but the voices of our peers, friends, family, those we wish to please, as well as the interior voices of our feelings, and the wee small voice of our conscience.
When we sin, it is not just that we have chosen not to listen to our conscience, instead we have actively chosen to listen attentively to another voice. We have turned our ears away from God and toward another voice, a voice that always has a beautiful rationalization for the sin we choose to commit.
Today in the United States we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was, like all of us, a flawed human being. His greatness was that, in the critical moments of life, his hearing had been honed from years of practice to find, amidst the noise, the quiet voice of God, and to choose to listen intelligently to that voice even when it endangered his life.
Can we name the voices that speak to us? Can we identify the voice of of our passions like ambition, lust, or selfishness? Do we have the courage to turn away from the voice of our friends when they urge us in the wrong direction? Can we recognize the voice of our conscience amid all the noise?
As human beings we have a God-given freedom to choose and whether we are aware of it or not we are constantly choosing one voice over another. The challenge of Christian living is to develop the habit of identifying the voice of God and choosing to lean toward and listen intelligently to that one voice.
