“Can You Hear Me?”
Lent 2009 – Day 19 (Mar 18)
By Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
I called my mom and dad on their mobile phone yesterday. For me their voices were clear, but they kept asking, “What? What?...” Finally dad said, “I can hardly hear you.” To which I reply, “Never mind. I’ll call you back later.” I came late to my office this morning. [Not a good example. Please don’t tell my boss]. I had to make some important calls. First call: the voice from the other end was clear, but the response I got was “Sorry, he is out of town.” Second call: it went through easily. Yet as I began to speak, the other began to tell me, “Your voice is not clear!” I was a bit frustrated, but thank God, between several “what’s”, I managed to deliver the message. Third call: better than the first two? The voice from the other end was so clear and crisp, but the only words I got were: “Hello? Hello?...” Then, as I was trying to raise my voice, he hanged up.
My relationship with God can be described as “Who calls? Who hears?” The Bible abounds with this image. God is experienced to be a very close God. It can even claim that no other nations have a God so near like ours. Yet for me, it is always frustrating when I call God in times of trouble, but God seems to be absent, distant, indifferent, and worst of all, deaf! There are times when I even ask God, “Can’t You hear me?” It means: “Hey God, You’re not doing your job!” I try to imagine how many times God has tried to call me. How many times I have replied, “Sorry, I can’t hear You!” Or, even worse, I just hanged up. Or, worst of all, I tell God, “I can’t really hear You! There must be something wrong with Your phone!”
I usually don’t like the term “laws.” Even the laws from God create a feeling of being controlled, observed, under surveillance. Yet if I think that the laws are those attempted phone calls from God, then things will appear different. The problem lies within me, with my inability, or my unwillingness to really stop, slow down, take a deep breath, and listen carefully. When I do this, there is no need for the frustrating “what’s” since God’s voice will become clear and crisp.
1 comment:
i reflect this is as " No signal or No communication line ", not sometimes but many times i have lost the signal to communicate with Him, as i have the line to communicate like reading or prayer but still hard to do. Thanks father Deshi, i think to take time, no no but make time to be with Him then pay a good attention to what He is going to say with me. Thanks again.
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