Ears to Hear
Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. Psalm 19:2
Pours Forth – Listen! Do you hear that? Out there, by the edge of the mountains? It’s a storm, way in the distance. You better be careful. Time to get to high ground.
A rain storm in the desert can be very dangerous. Suddenly the ground is covered with water. It runs through cracks and crevices and spills into earthen channels. Without warning, a flash flood roars into the canyons. Nothing can stop its power. With a roar, it announces the power of the distant storm.
People of the desert know the signs. Perhaps that’s why Hebrew has at least eight different verbs for the idea of pouring forth. This one (naba) paints a picture of an uncontrollable torrent gushing through a wadi. David likens nature’s announcement to the torrent of a flash flood. This is no softly spoken whisper. This is no melodious bubbling brook. This is an overwhelming, unstoppable wall of speech shouting, roaring and pronouncing God’s glory in His creation.
The problem is not the gushing storm. The problem is that we don’t hear.
Most flash floods catch their victims unaware because the storm happens miles away from the raging water. The rain, thunder and lightning are distant. They do not command our attention. We think that the distance protects us. So, we stay in the low areas, oblivious that a wall of water is speeding toward us. By the time we see it, it’s too late. We didn’t listen to the storm in the distance and now its consequences have overtaken us. If we had ears to hear, we would have known that the distant thunder was announcing impending doom.
This word (naba) seems especially appropriate for today’s deaf ear toward God’s announcement. The heavens do declare His glory. Everywhere we look we see a sense of order, so intricate, so uniform that it is nearly impossible to imagine an accidental beginning. But the silent speech of nature is distant from our momentary preoccupations, so we don’t pay attention to its message. Just like the desert storm, nature’s announcement should sound a warning. It’s time to seek the Designer before the might of His hand arrives, overwhelms us and we are found wanting.
If the heavens declare His glory and we turn a deaf ear, who will excuse us when the flood carries us away? Are we so focused on the dirt at our feet that we cannot hear the thunder on the horizon?
