What does the call of God sound like? There is the call of the sea, the call of the mountains, the call of the great ice barriers. These are calls heard only by the few—by those who have the sea or the mountains or the ice in their blood. So it is with the call of God. His call is the expression of his nature, and only those with the same nature inside them can hear it.
Have we ever heard God calling? His call always comes intimately, through the circumstances of our lives. There is no point asking anyone else about these circumstances; they are strands of our existence that God has woven specially for us.
It is easy—too easy—to miss the call. We have to maintain the profound relationship between our soul and God if we are to hear it. Isaiah was able to hear because, after the tremendous crisis he had been through, his soul, open and raw, was tuned in to God.
Most of us are tuned in only to ourselves; we hear nothing of what God is saying. I have to realize that the call of God is not an echo of my own nature. My likes and dislikes are not part of it. Neither is my temperament. As long as I place concern for myself at the center of my life, all I’ll hear are my own thoughts, echoing back at me.
To be brought into an intimate conversation with God is to be profoundly changed. It is to see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and understand with our hearts all that God is saying (Isaiah 6:10).
