The Voice of God
In today’s Gospel, the story is Jesus healing a man who was born blind and mute. Whenever I have prayed with this passage, my emphasis has always been on understanding God’s call and how I am deaf to His call in my life. Or I have concentrated on what word God is asking me to speak that I am resisting. However, today my prayer is drawing me in a whole different direction. The passage hasn’t changed, but perhaps I have.
When I was taking courses in counseling, one of the professors spoke about “internal tapes” that are created within us based on our external reality. Often as far back as childhood, the tapes are made by parents, teachers, other children, and life’s circumstances. They then influence us throughout our whole life. When situations arise, we hear clear as day, the words of the past. Internal tapes are both negative and demeaning and positive and life-giving.
A simple example is: Someone asks me if I want to learn to play golf. My internal tape might say, “You are a fool. You are terrible at sports. You will look stupid.” Or my inner tape might say, “You never know until you try, just have fun with it.”
So how does that fit with this reading? We all have internal tapes. We have the power to choose which ones we nurture and which ones we are deaf to. Through the Gospels, Jesus planted some amazingly wonderful tapes within our hearts. Regretfully, both life and the Evil One has sown some very negative ones among the positive ones. We choose what guides our life.
Let me give you some examples:
- The Evil One says: “You aren’t good enough.” Jesus says: “You will do even greater works than I have done.
- The Evil One says: “The poor are just looking for a free ride.” Jesus says, “If someone asks for your shirt, give him your coat as well.”
- The Evil One says: Never back down from a fight. But, on the other hand, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
- The Evil One says: “Take care of # 1” Jesus says, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
The list can go on. The important thing is to pay attention to the internal tapes playing in your head and in your heart. They are different for all of us, but no one escapes them. We must be attentive. Where do we allow the tapes that were ingrained in us in childhood or by the world’s standards to own us? Where do they overshadow Jesus’ whispered words of love? Jesus is asking us to want to hear and know His voice in us. He is waiting to be invited to heal the negative tapes that often guide how we feel about ourselves and the judgements we place on others. Jesus wants to replace them with the clear resonating sound of His Word. He wants the tapes we hear to be His voice.
Healing comes to the deaf-mute because he seeks out Jesus for a cure. In Jesus’ time being deaf would have been believed to be a punishment from God or possession by a demon. So too, today, our feelings of inadequacy, shame, anger, doubt, abandonment, and fear are the work of the Evil One. Step in close, and Jesus will place His healing hand on you. Just ask. His Word will become the new tapes that heal and guide your life and your heart.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
