The Story Chapter 14 - The Nation Splits

In the course of work, meet a lot of people and particular type of person who never ceases to amaze me. It’s the type of person you can visit for an hour and a half, and come away having spoken only half a dozen sentences yourself!

 

I think we all know what it’s like to be in the company of someone like that. And though they can often be charming and good company, if you’re anything like me you’ll leave feeling a bit drained or frustrated. Because not once in that flowing monologue did they pause to find out anything about you! To ask you a question, or seek an opinion, or do anything to suggest that you were anything other than a conveniently receptive pair of ears.

 

By definition, conversation is a two-way process. And instinctively we’re very tuned in to the body language and the modes of conversation which tell us that someone’s speaking not with us but at us.

 

Now hold onto that idea for a moment, but let’s translate it into the arena of prayer. Because, as I’ve said many times before, prayer is a form of conversation. Conversation with God,

 

But I wonder how many of us leave any space between ‘Dear God’ and ‘Amen’ in which we listen for God’s side of the story? Isn’t it the case that when we think about prayer, the first thing that springs to mind is us talking.? Us asking for things, or thanking God for answers, or expressing our worship to him?

 

And of course, that’s all fine – God wants to hear those things. But I’m pretty sure he also wants to get a word in edgeways too. Prayer is at least as much about listening as speaking.

 

The Psalmist says “For God alone, my soul waits in silence”; there’s an expectancy there; a willingness to wait and listen. And we need to recover something of the discipline of listening when we pray, because it’s that listening that tunes us in to the reality of God.

 

We have a little radio in our bathroom. It’s shaped like a fish, and its flipper controls the frequency. It’s kind of cheesy, but I like it. It’s one of those Christmas presents you roll your eyes at, but actually get quite fond of over the years.

 

But every now and again, I come in to the bathroom and switch it on, and it isn’t the familiar tones of Nicky Campbell or Victoria Derbyshire on Radio 5-live I hear; it’s some other worthy reading the news, or hosting the phone-in. Or more likely, it’s static buzzing away.

 

Somebody’s bumped the flipper, and because we haven’t graduated to DAB yet, I have to spend a few seconds scanning the frequencies until I hear a voice or a jingle from the station I really want to hear.

 

I don’t know about you, but I know how easily I get bumped off God’s frequency.

 

Somebody once said there are two kinds of people in this world, those who wake up and say “Good Morning God”, and those who wake up and say “Good God, it’s morning”. I have to confess, it’s mostly the latter for me.

 

And I know that if I don’t watch myself and make at least some time to wait in silence and tune in, my day will be shaped not by God, but by a host of other voices, clamouring for my attention – some of them literal and some metaphorical.

 

Some of us often find joy squeezed from our lives because the voices of duty and responsibility shout loudest and we’ve forgotten how to silence them.

 

Some of us live each day with voices from the past whispering in our ears. Some encouraging, perhaps; but others tending to bring us down and deflate us.

 

And some of us live as pale shadows of the people we could be because the voice of self-doubt’s always there, nagging away at us.

 

The writer Donald Miller has had international success as a Christian author and speaker, but that hasn’t insulated him from self-doubt.

 

In a recent blog he wrote about how he’d delivered a poor address at a conference, and as he was settling down into his plane seat to return home, he saw two men he thought he recognised from the meeting and overheard one of them say ‘I’m glad I don’t have to sit next to him’!

 

He spent the next two hours fretting over that remark. How bad must his talk have been if those guys didn’t even want to sit near him!

 

But then it occurred to me that I really didn’t know the whole story. I’d assumed they didn’t want to sit next to me because my talk was so bad, but how did I know for sure?

When I got off the plane, I waited a couple minutes for them to come up the ramp and I mentioned we’d been at the same conference, I asked if there was anything I could do to improve my lecture. They both looked at me blankly. Finally, one of them said “Were you at the State Farm conference?”

I hadn’t been. In fact, those guys weren’t even at my lecture, and they weren’t even at the conference I spoke at. And when they got on the plane, they weren’t even talking about me.

The whole thing made me wonder what other false narratives I was inventing in my head. How many people do I think don’t like me who actually do? How many people have I been offended by when I actually just misunderstood them?

Since then, I’ve been careful to follow up on every story I tell myself about somebody being upset or disapproving of me. It’s been remarkable. I’d say up to 90% of the time, I’ve got the wrong story floating around in my brain.

 

There are so many voices within us and around us, all the time.

How can we discern which ones are worth listening to and which aren’t. Which are true, and which are false?

 

The Christian answer to that is to follow the example of the Psalmist. “For God alone, my soul waits in silence” he writes. There’s the key. We wait for the one who tells us the truth about ourselves, and in whose presence all other voices fall silent.

 

For years I’ve loved these words of the 14^th century monk Thomas A Kempis:

 

“O God I am often wearied by reading and hearing many things. In you is all that I long for. Let all who teach fall silent, let all created things be still before You; do You alone speak to me”

 

Do you alone speak to me, Lord. Because then I will be ready to hear and deal with whatever else is going to come my way this day.

 

Over the past few months as we’ve made our way through the Story, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the fate of the women and men we’ve been reading about often hangs on how closely they listen to God.

 

Adam and Eve’s fateful mistake was to listen to the serpent rather than the instruction of God.

 

Abraham and Sarah did well in listening to God’s command to go to a foreign land, believing that he would bless them with descendants even though they were childless.

 

Moses heard the call to return to Egypt and save God’s people, but after the Exodus the people refused to listen to God time and time again, and ended up wandering in the wilderness for years.

 

Gideon listened to God’s counter-intuitive instructions to reduce the number of men in his army before fighting the Midianites, but under him and the other Judges, the people kept hardening their hearts to God’s ways.

 

Ruth listened to God’s prompting in her conscience to stay with her mother in law Naomi, when it would have been far easier for her to cut her ties and stay in her homeland. And her story ended well.

 

Samuel listened as a child, when God called to him in the darkness of the temple. But in his later years the people didn’t listen to him or to God – and demanded a king so they could be like all the other nations.

 

God wasn’t pleased, but he gave them Saul to be their king. And Saul failed to listen – choosing to go his own way and losing the kingship as a result.

 

King David fared better, apart from one famous occasion when he listened to his base desires, rather than to God.

 

And Solomon started well, but finished badly - listening to the pagan wives he’d married and being drawn away from the worship of Israels’ God.

 

And then today – the story of Rheoboam – Solomon’s son – who chose to ignore the good advice of his elders and instead followed the headstrong advice of his peers.  And the upshot of that was that the bulk of the kingdom was torn from his grasp, just as God had promised it would be. From now on there would be two nations, Israel and Judah, and two kings to rule over them, and we’ll learn more about their fate in the weeks to come.

 

That quick review of where we’ve got to reminds us that God’s upper story plan is to form a people who would show the nations what it’s like to live in close fellowship with the one true God. But we can’t live in fellowship with God if we’re not listening to him and living out what he asks of us. If we stop listening, in a very short time we just become like everyone else. Salt that’s lost it’s saltiness.

 

So as we begin a new year, we come back to a recurring question in our journey of faith. How do we actually hear from God?

 

Well let me say just a word or two on that subject as we close.

 

A key thing to realise is that generally speaking, it’s only as we listen out for God that we hear him.

 

What do I mean by that? Well, let me give you an example. It’s 5 o’clock in our house and Rhona’s just shouted through from the kitchen that tea’s ready. I go through to the lounge where the kids are glued to the telly and say “tea’s ready”. But I might as well be talking to the wall. They haven’t even realised I’m in the room, they’re so engrossed in what’s on. They’re not listening so they don’t really hear.

 

We can get very caught up in the question of how God speaks to us, but I think it’s more important to ask ourselves whether we’re practicing our listening. How much time will we set aside today, tomorrow, to listen for what God might be saying to us?

Our listening has to be intentional.

 

Over the years, Christians have tended to do that in a couple of ways. By reflecting prayerfully on the events of the day, and by taking time to meditate prayerfully on a few verses of scripture. Those are the two key disciplines that help you begin to listen to what God is saying to you.

 

And in this week’s order of service I’ve included some pointers to get you started with those practices at the beginning of a new year, if this is something that’s new to you. Lots of us are making new year’s resolutions about eating or exercise to help us look after our bodies better. Why not do the same for your soul, in 2014?

 

My sheep know my voice, Jesus says. And they know it because they’re in his company often and they’ve become accustomed to how he speaks.

 

I’m convinced that God still speaks to us today. But we’ll only hear, and our lives will only change, when we learn to listen.

 

Amen