‘How Small a Whisper We Hear of Him’

By Tom Gilson Published on July 19, 2018

“Indeed these are the mirror edges of His ways,
And how small a whisper we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His power who can understand?”

Job 26:14

My wife and I put our house on the market a couple weeks ago. We’ve had lots of interest, but no offers. No hurry: We’re taking it a step at a time. Where are we going to be living two months from now? We could be homeless, as far as we can see.

It’s hard to know the future. God knows, but sometimes He doesn’t let on any sooner than He has to. “How small a whisper we hear of Him!”

The Thunder of His Power

Not that He’s always that quiet. He’s clear as can be on the big questions: He’s real, He’s the Creator, He’s immense and He’s powerful. That’s the “thunder of His power”: powerful, strong, and yet short on details; for as Job asked, “who can understand” what He’s saying to each of us in it?

Job saw the big things clear as lightning, but he sure couldn’t understand his own part in the story. You know how that story goes. He’d been following God faithfully, when suddenly, in a day, he lost everything — his children, his wealth, everything but his wife and his health. Soon after that his health tanked, too.

Three caring friends came by to “comfort” him, telling him he must have done something awful to deserve it. Job knew better. His friends were wrong; this was no divine payback. We the readers know better, too, since the book gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse at God’s decision-making.

God Isn’t the Director Calling Out Our Positions on Stage

We also know that although Job knew better, still he knew so little. God never did clue him in on the background info that makes it all make sense for us readers. And He let Job wait a long time to inform him of His plans to heal and restore him, too.

Job could hear the thunder, but the thunder didn’t tell him all that he wanted to know. As for the whisper, how small it is!

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Today we have much more than the thunder and the whisper: We have the life of Christ, and the entire Old and New Testaments speaking of God’s loving faithfulness. Yet God hasn’t given you or me the background info that would make our own particular pains and sufferings make sense, any more than He did with Job.

When will our home sell? Where will we live? How will my health be a year from now? How will my kids be doing then?

Sure, it helps to know there’s a good future for us in the long run, in eternity. But wouldn’t it be nice sometimes if things were a bit more clear in the short- to middle-run?

But God keeps us wondering. He must have meant it that way — in love, even. And that part of it actually does make sense. Consider the alternative: God could explain everything like a film director, telling us where to stand, where to walk, what to say. He could even let us read the script, beginning to end. But then we’d see life as acting; which was never what he intended. Actors study scripts; God wants us to fall in love with the Author instead.

God’s Whispers in Our Story

I didn’t tell you the whole story of our deciding to move. I’m not even sure I know it myself! It isn’t just the story of moving, it’s also the story of whispers guiding us one step at a time.

There was the point in the process where we knew in the Lord it was time to get our house ready to sell, taking care of cosmetic issues we’d been putting off. “If we don’t move, at least we’ll enjoy it better here,” we said to each other. At that point we hadn’t decided a thing.

Then there was the stage where we called our friend the real estate agent, and asked her to run a selling price for us. “We don’t know if we’re moving or not,” we told her, “so please don’t put your time into it unless you’re prepared for us to say thanks, but no.”

It’s so much better than reading a script; so much better than God shouting every move at us.

Then there was the point where the idea of living a few miles north of here, near Dayton, started making more sense for reasons of church and my wife’s job.

I’m sure it all sounds so undecided, and in one way it has been. In another way, we had absolute confidence of every step we were taking, and just as much confidence that when we needed to know the next step, God would show it to us.

God has led us one whisper at a time. Every step has made sense so far, one after another, step by step. The next ones — the ones that will really make sense of it all — remain unknown.

We’ve Been Seeking God

But do you know what’s also happened in the process? We’ve been seeking God. And we’ve been seeing Him at work. I’ve seen how I need to trust Him more, and we’ve both been watching Him prove Himself trustworthy. He’ll do it again when it comes time for the next step, too.

It’s so much better than reading a script; so much better than God shouting every move at us. Because He’s drawing us into so much closer relationship to Him through it. He’s showing us His love. And He’s letting us be real persons walking through real life in a real relationship with Him.

I’m okay with the small whispers.

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