The voice of the Lord is over the waters…is powerful…is majestic…breaks the cedars…strikes with flashes of lightening…shakes the desert…twists the oaks and strips the forest bare.
Psalm 29:3-9
There’s a Chinese Christian song I really like, and the lyrics go something like this:
Listen closely, I will listen closely, I will listen closely for the voice of the Lord.
Listen closely, He is listening closely, the Shepherd knows my voice.
He is our Shepherd, the Lord of our lives, and all my life I will follow His voice .
He is our Shepherd, the Lord of our lives, His sheep knows His voice.
Like Psalm 29 describes, when we do listen closely for the voice of the Lord, we will find that He is constantly speaking to us: through other people, through nature, through circumstances, and of course, through the bible. His voice is that of power, enough to calm the storm raging outside and within us, enough to bring us the comfort, joy, strength, or whatever we may need.
The voice of God however, is never in-your-face loud. Though Psalm 29 says His voice shakes the desert and twists oaks, if we have not the heart to listen for His voice, we would still not recognize it even if God screamed in our faces (which He will never do). This is why the song urges us to listen closely, and when we do, we will begin to recognize and know His voice.
The song goes on to bring out another point Psalm 29 didn’t explicitly say: that God knows our voices, and He too, is listening closely to what we say. Remember in the book of Revelations, when all activities of heaven stopped so the prayers of God’s people could rise with the incense before God. Indeed, our Shepherd is listening closely for our voice.