Take Your Headphones Off!

… And after the fire came a gentle whisper. – 1 Kings 19:12 (NIV)

One of my greatest pet peeves in college was when people would walk around campus with headphones glued to their ears. To me, that immediately sent the message of “I’m not open for communication.” I understand that there truly are times when people don’t want to talk… especially to a stranger, or maybe more often to a non-stranger. I’ve been there and I still frequent that space as well. But when I saw the same person with headphones in time and time again, I always wondered – what interaction might they be missing out on, simply because they have headphones in? 

Well, guess what? A few years later, and here I am – being reminded to take my headphones off. 

In the past week alone, God has gently asked me to take off my headphones in three different, yet vivd ways.

With a drastic change in my running terrain, from flat lands to mountains, has come one of the tightest knots in my calf that I have ever experienced. After taking a week off of running, I was confident that the knot had loosened and that I would be able to make it through a light jog. So what did I do? I took that jog on the same hilly route that had originally led to this knot in my calf. With each stride uphill my calf tightened up just a little bit more, until even my great stubbornness couldn’t keep me running and my ‘light jog’ turned into a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood… and a conversation with my Father. 

As I walked back to where I had started, I began to see all of the things that I had run past on the way up the hill. I began to hear the birds chirping and the sound of the water trickling through a small creek by the road. As I walked and continued noticing all of these things that I failed to observe while I was running, God began to remind me that sometimes I just need to slow down to become more aware of what’s happening around me. Sometimes I need to slow down to notice His hand in every detail along the path of this journey. Sometimes I need to slow down to heighten my senses to Him. Sometimes I need to simply slow down and to be still before the Lord, my God. 

Though it had nothing to do with headphones in my ears physically, God was reminding me that sometimes I need to take the headphones of this busy life out of my ears in order to tune into Him. 

Within the next few days, I was on my way to work – praise and worship music coming through my speakers, as per my usual morning routine. A few songs down the road, I turned the volume down, still loud enough that I could hear it in the background, and I began to pray aloud. And then it hit me. “Turn the radio off and just be with me.” AKA – “Take your headphones out!” I turned my radio off for the remainder of my drive to work that morning… and the next day.. and the next. 

You see, before getting in my car in the morning, I have already had some time to sit with God in His Word. Most days I have already journaled a little bit of what I feel that He is drawing my attention to in the passage that I had read. But this quiet time in the car with Him has been bringing an extra layer. It allows He and I to continue in the conversation that had been started in my quiet time. And I have to be honest. Though my lousy excuse was that the music keeps me awake (and often makes me more awake) on my drive, I can tell you that I have no trouble staying awake as my ears are tuned to the Lord on that drive. Some days, I haven’t only gotten out of my car at work ready for the workday, but I step out feeling ready to run a marathon – fueled on the joy of the Lord and His goodness and loving kindness.  

So friends. If you spend any amount of time in your car daily – I want to encourage you to allow the Lord into that time. Does praise and worship music have a place? Of course! But – it shouldn’t be what’s standing in the way of our Father’s conversation with us.  

I had finally made it to the weekend, two lessons of taking my headphones out under my belt, when I set out for a bike ride. I pumped up my bike tires, mounted my bag on the back, filled my water bottle, buckled my helmet, put my sunglasses on and away I went down a road that I had never biked before. 

Only a mile from my car, the sky started sprinkling. I figured it’d pass rather quickly and despite getting a little wet, it’d be nice to be out in nature, so I continued on. That light rain slowly became a little harder and a little bit harder and then it held a pretty steady…well, downpour… for about forty minutes, which happened to be long enough to get me to the very end of the one-way route. Soaked, I stopped in a church parking lot for a quick swig of water, looked up to see the sun starting to shine through the clouds, and headed back towards my car. 

Just as on my run a few days before, I began to notice everything that I had biked past on the way down the path. On the first part of my journey, I couldn’t see much beyond the road in front of me because of the rain and because I needed to keep focus on where my tire would be riding. But now, I could see the winding river beside me and the beautiful cabins that lined it. I could look up and look out to the greenery that stretched across every view. Without the pitter-patter of the rain, I took notice of the quietness of nature and the calmness in that area. 

And there it was again. As I had taken off my rain-drop covered sunglasses in order to see during and after the rainfall, God was there reminding me – “Sometimes you have to take off your glasses to see the world through my lenses.” In other words, “Take your headphones out!” 

Brothers and sisters. I have to wonder how often we are walking around with our headphones on. I wonder how often God looks at us and thinks, “They don’t seem open for communication right now.” I wonder how often God speaks, especially in those times when we are crying out to hear from Him, but we don’t hear Him because we have our headphones in. Or how many times we are asking Him to intervene or to show us His hand in whatever is happening, but we don’t see Him because we have our rain-drop covered sunglasses on! Or how many times that we go through seasons where we don’t hear Him or see Him at all, because we are simply too busy doing life and have failed to slow down. We have failed to take the time to be still with our Father. Our loving and kind and gracious and sovereign Father. Our Father who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present. Our Father who has gone before us, will follow behind us and who is right by our side in every moment. 

I know that I, for one, am guilty of wearing my headphones and even more than that, I know that I am far guiltier of it than I am aware of today – despite the reminders that God has given me this week. But I also know that I stand today, determined to make my college self proud by taking out my headphones and tuning my ears to the Lord. I am determined to take off the glasses of the world in order to strive forward in looking at all things through the lens of the Lord.

Our job is not to know when God will speak, act, or move, and thankfully it’s not to direct Him in doing so, but it is our job to be ready – minds attentive, ears tuned, and eyes fixed upon Him.

I want to leave you with the following scripture to meditate upon and pray that the Lord continues the sentence of what He may be speaking to you today. 

“Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” - 1 Kings 19:11-13

My friends, we can’t hear a gentle whisper when our headphones are glued to our ears, or even with the radio tuned way down. Let us not miss Him, simply because we are walking through this life with our headphones on.