The Still, Small Voice in the Silence

How would you react if you heard an audible voice but didn’t see anyone speaking to you?

There have only been a handful of times I have heard an audible voice from God or an angel. This is the story of the first time:

As a junior in high school, I was playing in a band with my brother, who was in his first year at Texas A&M University. Early one Friday, he drove down to Houston, TX in his Chevy S-10 Blazer to pick me up for an important gig we’d be playing the next day in College Station, TX.

It was a long, crazy weekend.

Finally, early Sunday afternoon we started heading back to Houston. My brother was driving, our drummer, Wally, rode shotgun, and I was in the back right seat. Now, you must understand that the SUV was packed to the gills with PA equipment, instruments, and various stands. There was only room for me to sit in one of the back seats, and only one side had a working seatbelt, so I chose the side where I couldn’t buckle up because I was cool like that.

Just before we got on the highway, my brother said he needed to stop by a friend’s house to grab something. He pulled in front of the house, said he would just be a minute, and he and Wally went inside. And just then, there in the silence, I heard it.

In a tone just above a whisper, a voice clearly told me to move all the stuff in the left back seat to the right side, and to buckle myself in the left back seat.

That was weird. Really weird. But, it also made a lot of sense. And, there was nothing in the message I heard that contradicted what I knew in the scriptures. So I moved all the equipment in the left back seat to the right, and buckled myself in the left seat.

About 20 minutes later we were several miles down the highway going about 80mph in the left lane. Unbeknownst to us, the Blazer began to drift off the left shoulder and onto the grass median. I looked up and realized we were about to hit a construction sign.

I yelled, “Watch out!” The Blazer swerved hard to the right into a minivan and began to flip. We flipped over three times across the width of the highway at 80mph. I remember flying around so fast, yet it was as if everything was happening in slow motion.

In a state of shock, we carefully climbed our way out of the side windows of the vehicle. Witnesses came running up to us asking us how we could be alive. The Blazer was a crumpled pile of garbage, and guitars and stands were strewn across the highway. Yet, we were blessed to escape with only small cuts and concussions.

I believe we were being protected throughout that crash. However, I also believe that if I had not listened to that still, small voice, my life would have turned out much different to say the least. 

What would have happened if Cornelius, the Roman centurion, had not listened to the heavenly voice that spoke to him?

Cornelius was, it is said, “a devout man, and one who feared God with all his house, giving much alms to the people, and praying to God always. He saw therefore, about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming in to him, and saying, ‘Your alms have come up as a memorial before God. Therefore send to Simon, who is called Peter.’” … He whom Cornelius had previously feared as God, of whom he had heard through the law and the prophets, for whose sake also he used to give alms, is, in truth, God. The knowledge of the Son was, however, wanting to him. – Irenaeus 180CE Volume 1, p. 717 [CD-ROM]

Cornelius may have never been saved if he had not been obedient to the heavenly word that came to him. Perhaps his household would have suffered the same fate. I don’t know. Regardless, I praise God for being a God who speaks, and I pray that we will listen when He does!