His Voice

Devotion for the week...

I'm currently reading through the book of Acts in my morning devotions and one day last week I read chapter 7, in which Stephen addresses the Council after they arrested him on the testimony of false witnesses. I burst out laughing when I read verse 53, which says, "You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels." It's not at all a funny verse, but for a moment that morning it sounded like James Earl Jones had suddenly appeared in my kitchen to reprise his role as King Mufasa!

There's a line in The Lion King where Mufasa says to Simba, "You deliberately disobeyed me." When I read those same three words in the Bible last week, I heard them in Mufasa's voice and cadence, even though I haven't seen The Lion King in years. The line has been on repeat in my head ever since, and I chuckle a little to myself every time I think of it.

There are other parts of the Bible that I hear in a specific voice or cadence, too. Most notable is the first part of Isaiah 53:6, which in the KJV says, "All we like sheep have gone astray." I cannot read that straight through! My mind automatically pauses a beat between words, then trills through 'astray,' just like in the song from Handel's Messiah. My husband plays Messiah almost every year around Christmas, and that particular song has embedded itself in my memory. Even rereading it multiple times while editing this devotion, I 'hear' it in my head like the song every single time 😂

This calls to mind Jesus talking about being the Good Shepherd. "I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice" (John 10:1-5). He also said, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (v. 27).

The expectation in Jesus' words is that we will know His voice, that we will recognize when He is speaking to us and when He's not. Obviously it's not going to be an 'out loud' voice we hear, but rather a recognition in our spirit that what we just heard, read, or thought was actually a message from God.

There are a lot of voices clamoring for attention these days - influencers and media and celebrities and politicians, not to mention our own friends and family. Can we pick out Jesus' voice amidst all the other noise? Are we paying enough attention to His word to even recognize His voice?

I'd love to know, are there any parts of the Bible you 'hear' in a particular person's voice? And when was the last time you heard God's voice?