“Bats fly by echolocation. They rapidly emit from their mouths high-pitched and high-frequency sounds. Bats tell how close they are flying to objects by the rapidity with which the sounds fly back. Experimenters have tried to confuse bats by making other sounds louder than the sounds the bats produce. No one yet knows how it is done, but a bat continues to pick out his own echoes. Even when the man-made sounds are 2000 times louder than those a bat makes, the flying mammal recognizes the right ones and stays on course. Could Christianity profit by the example of the bat? With all the loud voices clamoring for attention in our world today…don’t we need this sensitivity to line up with the right sounds on God’s course? Even the bats aren’t batty enough to get off course by trying to listen to all the sounds of all their traveling companions on the evening flights. If we want to keep ourselves on course in life, we need to let our hearts and minds feel the echoes from God” (Gary Bagley, Bayshore World).
Jesus addressed the need for not being distracted by competing sounds in this way: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:1–5).
Lord, help me to recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd in the midst of a noisy world. Help me train my ears to listen to Him instead of strangers.
God loves you!
Mike
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