Monday, March 9, 2009

Echo

It seems that without fail
when I finally pull aside and still my racing mind,
when I choose to quiet all the noise that I allow
within me and without,
that without doubt
I hear the voice of God echo within.

I say “echo within” because
it seems I’m only catching up to words already said,
but in the din of life in which I live
I missed them when they first flowed from His lips.

I guess that’s why I always feel behind.
I only hear the echo in my mind.
Maybe that’s why it isn’t quite as clear as I would like,
reverberations being what they are,
bouncing about and trailing off to silence.

What would it take to hear the still small voice
the first time that it came?
Perhaps time in the cave would clear my mind,
replete with mighty wind and trembling earth
and fiery sign. And then again
perhaps I’d find that it was all in vain.
God’s ways with men are often not the same.

That gnawing hunger for his voice…it’s driving me.
I wish I could say it was “leading me”,
but I suspect that wouldn’t be the truth.
That’s much too gentle for the likes of me.
It seems I need the “hounds of heaven”
rather than the gentle breeze
to get me to the place I’m looking for.

It is the voice and not the echo that I have to hear.
I want to find that place, undenied and undistracted,
Mary sitting at His feet;
John, unashamedly at rest,
all his weight upon the breast of the Word, the Word made flesh,
waiting for the voice.

I don’t want an echo anymore


March 2, 2009
Danny Mullins