HELP! I HEAR VOICES

There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without meaning. – 1Co 14:10

We’re already familiar with the multitude of voices without, but let’s go deeper today, and talk about the voices within.

When psychotic serial killers and perpetrators of brutal murders are brought before trial, they often claim the reason they carried out those gruesome acts was because some “voices” in their head told them to. This fact has become so clichéd that I once saw a guy with a T-Shirt that read, “I hear voices...and they don’t like you!” It was humorously inferring I could be butchered at any moment without warning if I got close. 

Though it’s well-established that psychologically disturbed persons hear “voices”, the truth is, WE ALL hear voices in our heads too! If you’ve been tempted before, then you’re well acquainted with the crazy reality of conflicting voices screaming in your head.

What distinguishes us from the man in the straitjacket in the padded cell is that we do not simply do ‘everything that comes into our heads’.

But they DO come into our heads: voices hinting on the right way to flaunt “it”, offering various false alibi’s on why we were late for work, providing several choice cusswords for that woman who stepped on our shoe without apologizing, proffering various explanations of “how she could buy a brand new car on that slim salary of hers”... VOICES.

Let’s be honest, we all hear them in our heads, and clearly they are not all from the Holy Spirit.

Does that then make us schizophrenic, conflicted, possessed by some foul sprite even?  No, on the contrary, if anything, it proves our spiritual sanity. People under the bondage of sin blindly follow the orders of Satan, their master; but we Believers who are free from his direct control and influence would necessarily have to be constantly tempted to sin. Hence, the ‘voices’.

Sometimes they are loud (sexual temptations, anyone?), other times they are subtle (fibs, for example), and some are so craftily constructed, that we’re not even aware that it’s an external voice speaking.

This is why we need to be always in tune with the indwelling Spirit. If we have the habit of always running our thoughts by the Holy Spirit before acting, we would spare ourselves a whole lot of struggle and baggage down the line.

“My sheep hear my voice... and a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.” (Joh 10:27; 10:5 )

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN