Stopping Long Enough to Hear God

Once while staying in Orlando, Florida, my wife and I got what a couple of Hoosiers would call the chance of a lifetime. The local news affiliates announced that the launch of the next space shuttle was a "go" for 3:18 P.M. on what was predicted to be a beautiful afternoon. In fact, the reporter threw in that this was only the second time in the history of the shuttle program that the "launch window" had a 100% possibility of perfect weather. That's when we made our decision: we would hop into our rental car and drive the 55 miles from Orlando to the Kennedy Space Center to see this spectacle for ourselves.

We budgeted plenty of time to make the trip. After a leisurely lunch we got onto the Florida Bee Line and headed east -- and immediately merged into a logjam of hundreds of cars. At first I figured we were stuck in a tollbooth backup. But the congestion extended beyond the booth all the way to the horizon. Within thirty minutes it dawned on us that we had voluntarily become part of a 55-mile long traffic jam, and were surrounded by thousands of people who wanted to see precisely what we had come to see.

We crept across the state, starting and stopping, until at 3:15 P.M. we were still at least 20 miles from our goal. That's when the myriad of rental cars and mini-vans around us began to park alongside the road. We did the same. People turned up their radios, got out their cameras, gathered in clusters on the shoulder and looked vaguely toward the east, across Florida swampland. We could hear the countdown: "...three, two, one...” and I wondered what exactly we'd be able to see so far away.

It was incredible. A bright orange flame on top of a pillar of smoke rose from the ground at a speed much faster than I thought possible. It all lasted no more than 30 seconds. The shuttle disappeared from our view into the haze. During that time, however, the gawking group of strangers with whom we were standing was overwhelmed by a staggering silence, punctuated only by an occasional, "Wow!" Just as quickly, reality returned. As if on cue we all jumped back into our cars, cutting across medians and racing to get an advantage over everybody else in the traffic jam that was now headed west.

But for just a few moments we had had a mutual encounter: together we had experienced awe.

Why did so many people think a 30-second thrill was worth the hassle? In the middle of the state that advertises more entertainment highs than any other, people were famished for the opportunity to stand, even at a distance, in the presence of something awesomely larger and more powerful than themselves.

That, I believe, is why people come to worship. Presented with an ever-growing menu of self-fulfillment opportunities on Sunday mornings, men and women willingly endure the hassles and distractions of coming alongside other worshippers to hear, just possibly – if only for a few moments – the Voice of One whose presence overshadows and infuses the rest of life's race with meaning. They come for an experience of awe, in the hope that they might encounter something that will bring their frantic lives to a stop.

There’s just one problem. When worshippers come in hope of hearing the Voice, what they get instead are the voices of mere mortals: people singing off-key, gossipers next to the coffee pot, crying babies, and (scariest of all) preachers.

Preaching is a messy business. I fully agree with the sentiment, "Unless God speaks today, I have nothing to say." So far, however, that hasn't prevented me from opening my mouth in countless worship services with little or no idea what the Holy Spirit might be up to. But I have learned something over the years: God speaks, even when it appears that all of the worship leaders are stuttering. I have stopped being astonished when someone says, “What you said this morning was exactly what I needed to hear.” God is the one who orchestrates needs and communications in ways that far supersede the expectations of the worship planners.

What can we do to have a better chance of hearing God’s voice? In a sense, we need to pull off the road. We must break our routines. We need to stop long enough to tune our ears to God’s frequency. He is speaking – in every conversation we have with someone else, as we walk toward our car in the parking lot, in planned services of worship, as we supervise playtime and bedtime for our kids, and whenever we watch weather fronts approaching.

The temptation, of course, is to close our ears too quickly – to plunge back into our manic routines because our lists of things to do today are So Very Important. But that is a formula for missing the meaning of life by attending to all the details of life. May God meet you somewhere on the side of the road this week, as you stop to do nothing more than ponder his presence…and feel awe.