Turning in to God

Imagine traveling to a remote and isolated land, where the people have had little contact with western technology - perhaps deep in a rain forest or a distant desert. After a long journey, your interpreter/guide brings you to a small village. The people greet you curiously, but warmly. As the sun sets, you share a meal with your new friends. After eating, you pull a radio out of your knapsack, and turn it on. You look at the villagers, amused by the looks on their faces as they listen to BBC World News for the first time.

The headman of the village points to the radio and speaks through your interpreter: "He asks, what is that voice?" You ask the interpreter to explain that it is a man’s voice. "But how can a man fit in that little box?" the headman asks. Smiling, you explain that the man is not in the box, but is far away, across the ocean. The interpreter translates this, and the villagers break into laughter, slapping their thighs and pointing in your direction. The headman raises his hand to quiet them, then speaks again: "He says the villagers mean no offense, but they think you are crazy. Everyone knows only God’s voice can travel in this way."

Something about the headman’s words, this strange but welcoming place, and the flickering light of the fire. You begin to understand something - not about their culture, but about your own. While you take radio for granted, you’ve always thought people who claimed to know God were as crazy as the villagers think you are. After all, you’ve never heard His voice. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. But then, just because the villagers had never heard a radio transmission, that doesn’t mean radio waves don’t exist. This thought occurs to you: radio waves have existed since time began, all around us, unseen, unheard, and until recently in human history, unknown. But people of vision and knowledge learned to harness them, to capture their invisible power. Could the villagers understand a greater truth? Tonight you’re not so sure. Maybe, just as radio waves exist without everyone being able to hear them, the universe holds another and more magnificent power. Though unknown to many, perhaps it is just as real, maybe even more real than the electromagnetic spectrum, to those who come to know it for themselves. Now you wonder: If we can tune radios to hear man’s voice, can we tune our hearts to hear God’s?