And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came.
And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard; and it said unto them:"
3 Nephi 11:4-6
Weird place to break, I know, but what I wanted to focus on is the process of understanding here. It reminds me a little of a bad-news phone call I got once. Even though I heard all the words correctly and understood their meaning, my brain perhaps was not processing the emotion behind the message, and even though it made it worse, I just stood there spluttering "what? ... WHAT?" until all of that emotion caught up to the plain meaning of the words.
... And maybe that is what happening here as well, as God speaks to the people. They've been through a lot, and then they are addressed by God. Either of those things by itself could break your brain a little, but both at once... the stress and the overwhelming emotion... is a lot. It takes a bit for them to focus in and really have the capacity to hear what he is saying. And wonderfully, patiently, God understands this and repeats himself several times for them.
I think maybe it also teaches us a little bit about how to overcome our own deafness to the Spirit, which we all have sometimes. If we can't feel or hear God in our lives, it doesn't mean that he isn't there reaching out for us, because he is. It means that we have to stop, turn towards the voice, refocus completely on it, and do everything we can to listen. As we do, we'll start to understand.
No comments:
Post a Comment