Freedom to Hear God: Perception

Today, I'd like to welcome my friend Lindsey to God Speaks Today. I found Lindsey one day while I was leaving a comment on Beth Moore's blog and happened to read the comment posted before mine. My heart went out to this--then unknown, virtual, faceless--young lady. So I went to her blog and I told her so. She wrote me back, and there began a friendship with Lindsey. A friendship that grew from unknown, virtual and faceless to known, real and face-to-face.




Lindsey has many talents, but one of them is writing. She is amazingly gifted, which is why I asked her to guest post for me today.

Thank you Lindsey, from the bottom of my heart, for this post and for your friendship. I love you!

Sandy

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As a child I was fascinated with Helen Keller and her story. When I read about her life, I was amazed at how she lived without what most of us take for granted…the gift of sight and the gift of sound. I would play a game of make believe by covering my eyes with a bandana and plugging my ears with cotton and stumble around my room, touching objects and trying to figure out what they were, caressing a family members’ face to try and figure out their expressions, listening to music and trying to figure out the words.

It is harder then you think…objects once familiar are indistinct, sounds are muffled and unclear. Suddenly, you no longer have a frame of reference, except a fickle memory, to help you discern what you are touching or feeling. Every fiber in your being is straining towards understanding the little clues you have, and your mind starts working overtime to fill in the blanks you are suddenly missing. In fact, you have to rely solely on the images your mind is conjuring up in that moment, your final decision based on your perception of what the object could be.

I often thought how horribly sad it must have been for Helen before she learned to communicate…how lonely and different she must have felt, trying to make her way in a world that seemed a series of harsh unknowns. How frustrated and defeated she must have felt when she didn’t have all the tangible facts or the tools needed to form a clear vision and a clear understanding of the world around her.

But when she finally did learn, when she finally gave in and stopped fighting, how suddenly her world was opened in ways she could never have imagined before. Her perception of herself was suddenly and radically altered, as she realized her potential, given the right tools and the right guidance.

As I have grown older and experienced the saving grace of God, I often think about my childhood game and the way it paralleled the way my life turned out before God redeemed and restored me.

Very much like Helen, I was blind and deaf almost my entire life, but in a figurative sense. I stumbled around for years, trying to make sense of the objects and people around me in this crazy chaotic world…trying to find purpose in the things I could see with my eyes and feel with my hands that always seem to cut to me to the core…trying to find meaning in the harsh words I heard over and over, labeling me as worthless, unloved, unwanted.

Years of experiences like this led to a tendency for me to fall into crippling indecision, debilitating loneliness, and mounting insecurity, always trying to present a perfect mask, desperately trying to hide the real me underneath from everyone around me.

And while other people may have been fooled, God never was. He knew my innermost fears, my innermost desires, and my innermost heart.

More importantly, He knew who He created me to be. Not what the world was showing me and telling me I was, and certainly not who I had learned to believe I was, before He stepped in and freed me with the right tools and the right guidance…the Bible and His voice, whispering through my mind as a constant reminder of His love during the joyful moments of my days, resounding like thunder in my soul through the darkest of struggles, giving me strength and faith to cling to His hand and to keep striving towards His plans for me.

Freedom in God is such a glorious gift; but often one we have a hard time accepting fully. It is almost easy as a Christian to praise God and be thankful by saying He has freed us from past hurts, freed us from fear, and freed us from sin. It is not so easy to praise God and be thankful because He has freed us from ourselves….and our skewed perception of ourselves.

I know that many of you have suffered attacks of the world and of Satan that you have let define you, and have let you feel like an outsider in your own skin, in your own heart, and even in your own faith and relationship with God.

But I invite you now, to allow a shift in perception. A shift away from what you perceive with your worldly eyes and what you hear with your uncertain ears, inundated with the wail of a world’s siren call and Satan’s lies…and instead a shift towards what God has deemed, what God is showing you, what God wants you to hear. Throw away that faulty perception, and allow the veil to be lifted from your eyes, so that you may see His love and mercy, believe His plan for you, and hear His song of hope for your life.

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." -Galatians 5:1

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To read Lindsey's story of redemption, visit her blog, A New Life.