Some Called it Thunder (SCT): Preface

by Darren Rusco

Note: I'm working on a book about hearing God's voice. The process of writing is a slog for me, so I decided to work it out through blog posts, hoping that would help me get ideas out to print, and also give readers a chance to feedback and help form the end product.

In John 12 we read about an extraordinary, supernatural event in the week leading up to the death of the Messiah. Jesus spoke to the crowd about his imminent trial. The weight of it all led Jesus to say, “My soul is deeply troubled.” Jesus asked himself out loud if he should pray to avoid these events; but no, he knew this was the very reason he came to earth in the first place. Having embraced his destiny, Jesus pronounced, “Father, bring glory to your name.” At this moment, something phenomenal happened. The barriers of the heavenly realm broke through into the earthly realm. A voice spoke from heaven announcing, “I have already brought glory to my name, and I will do so again.” The audible voice of Yahweh thundered from heaven for the entire crowd to hear. Or had it? Indeed, they all heard something. But some called it thunder. Some heard distinct audible words coming from heaven, but others only heard thunder, a normal natural sound. Jesus went on to say that the voice was for the crowd’s benefit, not his own. But how can it be that God can speak audibly for all to hear, yet some call it thunder? Imagine the conversations that day between the hearers. Imagine the disagreements. Imagine how so many people had a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with the God of heaven and others simply encountered a common, natural weather event. How can this be? Did God choose in advance who would hear and who would not? Or was there something going on inside the hearts of the people causing them to miss out on God’s audible voice?

Perhaps you are familiar with the workings of microphones, soundboards, amplifiers, and speakers. A person speaks into a microphone, sending the signal to a soundboard. The engineer at the board can mix all the signals and sounds, which are then amplified and sent out to the speakers for a crowd to easily hear. There is an important function on the soundboard called gain. The gain measures how much input comes from the microphone through the soundboard to be amplified. You might picture this as a sensitivity level for the microphone. If the gain for a microphone is set to zero, no sound will come out of the speakers but as the gain is increased, the sound will get louder and louder. But the purpose of gain is not volume. Gain controls the sensitivity input of the microphone. If gain is down, it doesn’t matter how loud someone shouts into a microphone, no sound will come out of the speakers. If gain is up, even the smallest whisper will be heard loud and clear through the speakers to the audience. In fact, if gain is too high, the microphone will be too sensitive, causing loud feedback sounds to be heard by all. So you will never hear a sound engineer tell the person speaking into the microphone to speak louder, because it’s not about the volume of the one speaking, it is about the gain applied to the microphone. This illustrates how we hear God’s voice. There are times when we ask God to speak louder, yet his volume is not the issue. If the gain of our heart is up, we will hear the faintest whisper of God’s voice come through the speakers loud and clear. And we can see from John 12:29, that even the audible voice of God for all to hear will not be heard by those whose hearts have no gain.

I suppose there are seasons where God speaks less, but my conviction is that in times when we can’t hear what God is saying, our first responsibility is to see if the sensitivity of our hearts is turned up before we conclude that God is not speaking loud enough. This little book explores the practical ways we can increase the sensitivity of our hearts in order to hear what God is saying.