Voices

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Voices. Disquiet. Anxiety. Unease. We all hear them. Sometimes clear; distinct. Sometimes inarticulate. Like inaudible chatter, they compete for our attention. Our body sleeps, but our spirit remains awake; alert to another realm. 

A third dimension. 

A tear in the fabric between time and space. 

Jesus said, “My sheep know My voice and the voice of another they will not follow.” 

For years, I yielded to the voices that pushed their way into my early morning thoughts. Voices of fear. Anger. Voices of discontent. Worry. They sounded so much like me. I thought they were. Without resistance, they intertwined with my spirit; became the guide post for my words and actions throughout the day. They became my reality.

In the movie, The Lord of the Rings when Aragorn, son of Arathorn is protecting the Hobbits from the Dark Riders he says, “They are the Nazgul, spirit wraiths, neither living nor dead.” How well that defines the voices that sought my strength.

I cannot count the days I found myself living somewhere between confusion and fear; offense and resentment. I was miserable. My body functioned, but my soul was neither living, nor dead. In the waking hours of my foggy state of awareness, I had heeded the voice of another. The Liar. At best, I was surviving. Living out his habits. His routine. His behavior. Not the dreams my soul longed for.

Voices have always controlled us. From the beginning, they were the catalyst to choice. Leading us. Tempting us. Warning us. We had only to choose which one we would follow. 

We are wandering souls in search of a Garden. 

A place where the atmosphere is oxygen to our soul. 

A place of peace and beauty; a habitation where quiet and serenity is routine. 

The place where we were born. 

Somewhere in the deepest part of my being there was an echo of the first voice. A voice that woke me every morning and lulled me to sleep every evening. It was the sound of acceptance; the wonder of being Loved perfectly, but it grew distant. Silenced by the noise of my own questioning until only the cacophony of the knowledge of my flawed, corrupt condition awakened me. 

The sound of the awareness that I had fallen. 

The voice of the Nazgul. Indistinct at first; it grew in strength and clarity, emptying me of my own will. My sin was my companion; a barrier, a fence between me and stillness. Peace. The sound of my own condemnation gated me out of the place where I once walked freely in the musical temper of Love. Guilt thrust me out of rest and into the arms of my enemy. Me. Now, the strident discord of countless tormenting voices battled for supremacy. Noise. Inharmonious dissonance. The sound of neither living, nor dying.

A multitude of voices it seemed. They took the awareness of my broken condition and turned time into struggle; work into effort. These voices. Hard, laborious toil became my daily routine. Like a prodigal, I worked to earn my Father’s approval. In the midst of all this unbearable clamor, I slowly forgot the sound of His voice; the tenor and quality, the pitch and tone of unconditional Love. 

How I longed to hear Love wrap its resonance around me one more time, just as the night sky was beginning to darken.

I was lost between worlds, like the spirit-wraith. Homeless. How could I lose this awareness? The sound of my own guilt. How could I shake the noise that condemned me? The echoes of shame and loss? Self-reproach. How could I rid myself of these unwelcome declarations that awakened me every morning and put me to sleep every night? Torment. The sound of my foes. My enemy. Me.

We are wandering souls in search of a Garden. 

A place where the atmosphere is oxygen to our soul. 

A place of peace and beauty; a habitation where quiet and serenity is routine. 

The place where we were born. 

It was in those moments when I was asleep that my soul still longed for union. My spirit cried, Abba! Daddy! How I long to come home. How I long to come back to the place I was born. How I long to walk with You again. One hand in Your pocket; the other in mine, like Fathers and sons who meet in the cool of the day. 

In that place between sleep and awake, I remembered it all. You made me for the Garden and the Garden for me.  

*I come to the Garden alone. There’s something about the early morning hours. When our spirit is awake; alert to another realm… 

“O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land,” Psalm 63:1. 

Isaiah 58:11, “The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.”

Somewhere between awake and asleep, *He speaks and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing. In that moment of perfect stillness, I remember that I am His Garden. I unlock the gate and He enters. I lose the awareness of my condition. I stop striving for Daddy’s approval and His arms enfold me. I enjoy the smell of His presence again. 

*And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls,” I Peter 1:8&9. 

Voices. Thank God, we can choose which voice we tune the frequency of our soul to hear. If you pay close attention, early in the morning, you can hear His voice above all the others. His is distinct. It is always the still, small sound. Peaceful. Quiet. Joy. Your spirit will know even while your body sleeps. You can choose the tree you will eat from today. Which voice you will follow. 

“Awake my soul! Awake harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn,” Psalm 57:8.

The day is about to begin.

In the sweetness of those moments just before the harsh, discordant sounds of the world demands your attention, bask in the garden of His communion and meditate on His goodness. 

Sit beside still waters.

Smell the fragrance of His presence. 
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And let the sound of His voice feed the longing in your soul.

Lord, I love these moments before the day begins. They are my favorite, now. My body struggles between the work that awaits me and the sleep that beckons, but my spirit still floats somewhere between time and space. We are in Your Garden, walking. You and me. Your presence is like the fragrance of the morning dew as it touches the petals of the rose. Tender. Fragile. Precious. I lose the awareness of me. My self. My sin. My hopelessly flawed condition. I hear no other voices. Only the sound of Your unconditional Love. 

You give me a taste of the Tree of Life and I find that a River runs through me. 
Now. 
And all throughout the day.


*In the Garden written by C. Austin Miles (1868-1946)