Whispering out of the Dust

I should preface this by saying that I am not certain what Isaiah saw, nor what he was trying to say, in chapter 29 verse 4. But the phrase ‘whispering out of the dust’ of his makes a great title to an important concept I want to explain.

A voice whispering out of the dust is the moment when the divine gently reaches out to us when there is no real reason to pay attention to it and often plenty of reason not to. No authority requires it. There’s no money in it. The source of the whisper seems foolish and the act of listening pointless. Yet, speaking from the recipient’s point of view, a part deep in our souls holds on to the words and can’t quite let them go. It’s the spiritual side of us, the part that seeks to know God and His ways. Or is it our slight relationship with the Holy Spirit? Is He gently pointing out some truth we need? I don’t claim to really know how it works. But I sure know how it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work by knowing that I have it all. It doesn’t work when I’m sure others have nothing to offer and reject them out of hand. Whisperings of the Holy Spirit only reach me when I cease trying to force them to comply with certain rules of behavior, or to confine them within my doctrines and traditions. Preconceptions are the greatest killers of whisperings of the Spirit. Some would like to believe that certain religious leaders claiming to speak for God fulfill the ‘whispering from the dust’ concept. But to their members their voices are anything but “whisperings”. God might speak through them. But when He does, it’s loud and clear, definitely not in a whisper.

But there are many times when He wants to ‘whisper’ to us. How can we identify these whisperings? It would help a lot if we could look into the past for good examples of these ‘whisperings’. Enoch is a good example. He began preaching when he was only 25 years old. He seemed way too young for a time just a few years after the death of Adam. Adam’s children, all consider great spiritual men. Why should anyone listen to this upstart 25-year-old when they had men of great reputation to listen to? In comparison to those with four to six centuries behind them, still speaking for the Lord, Enoch’s voice must have seemed pathetically weak, just a whisper. Most ignored Enoch for two reasons: they already had great spiritual leaders and he was too young.

Joseph’s brothers despised God’s dream message to Joseph. That was a clear case of dismissed whisperings. As a little boy, Samuel went to Eli three times before Eli realized what was going on: the Lord had chosen someone new, someone more worthy, to deliver His message to Israel. He was just a boy and his voice so small that Eli almost missed God’s message. David’s brothers treated him with scorn and derision when he first suggested Israel could depend on the Lord to fight from them. He was nearly sent home. Who can forget that 30-year-old carpenter from: (of all places!) Nazareth. Jesus trampled on so many traditions and offended so many very great men. Why would anyone listen to Him?

Or that silly maiden in France who thought God wanted her to throw out the English. Who will listen to a crazy old scientist from Sweden? How about that young farm boy from Vermont with a gold Bible? Or to an excommunicated divorcee (Annalee Skarin) who claims to visit Heaven? The most common reason for ignoring people sent from God: We already have a true religion and our own inspired leaders. Enoch, Jesus, Mohamed, Martin Luther, Joan of Ark, Joseph Smith, Bahaullah, Vivekananda, and Annalee Skarin all faced people who thought they ‘owned’ communication and authority with God.

Men feel they must control and institutionalize their relationship with God. Members of the religion are instructed how it works. The leader is reincarnated (Buddhist), or the most charismatic is the leader (Muslim). Perhaps it only the religiously educated (Jews and Protestant) Some use a combination of seniority and election (Catholic and others) and one uses seniority and places the heavy title of Prophet upon Him. Because of God’s tendency to do the unexpected, men try to shut Him up. We treat Him like a loose cannon and deny He will speak at all (Protestant) or that his message requires our confirmation. (Catholic) Another tries to confines all His communications to one man, and deny anyone else can receive anything from Him of general value. (LDS)

But scriptures have God speaking whenever He wants to whomever He wants. Acknowledging that places His revelations beyond man’s control. If there’s anything man has ever been jealous of, its control. So, we keep trying to control and channel God’s efforts to reach us. History then repeats itself and God whispers out of the dust again. Again, only the pure in heart will hear.

This has been so frustrating to those sure of their position and authority. But God keeps whispering and except for a few, we generally keep ignoring Him until enough time and evidence amasses to prove us wrong. By then the message is no longer a whisper. So God chooses another way to reach out to us so that His voice remains a bare whisper. Why does he do this? If He wants us to repent and follow another leader, why doesn’t He smack us with a vision, an angel, or some miracle we can’t so easily ignore? (He had to do this with Moses.)

But most of us don’t get that kind of experience. (Or have you all been keeping things from me?) I believe it’s to maximize our free agency. The more clearly, we feel big Daddy’s eyes watching us, the less likely we are to stray from His way. His goodness is natural and comes flowing always out of Him. It’s a part of His nature. Our love of righteousness must become the same. But the love of goodness can’t be coerced. The louder His voice, the more coerced our obedience to truth.

So, God continues to whisper out of the dust; choosing those avenues least likely to feel demanding, most likely to softly and sweetly catch our attention, but only if we love truth and righteousness enough to hear it. How precious and wonderful are His ways! That He cares about us so much to go to such great trouble! Ask my kids and you would soon learn that as much as I love them, I have never treated them so delicately. So, it never ends. As long our relationship is at all tentative and in need of improvement, God will be whispering. Especially from people and places we least expect.