Words from WW Blog

I have a knockoff Apple Watch, a $35 version of the self-absorbed iWatch. It does everything that needs to be done, like tell me the time!!! It also does other things like tell me whether I slept okay, informs me of my stress level, somehow tells me that I’m playing basketball, measures my heart rate, can be a stop watch, acts as a compass, makes me coffee, toasts my bagel, and other tasks that I didn’t realize were so important. (Just kidding on the coffee and bagel. I think I need to upgrade to get those features.)

One of my cheap watch’s features that is disturbingly interesting happens after I’ve been sitting for a while. It suddenly vibrates and displays the words “Let’s Move!” on the face of the watch. If I’m driving, the slight buzz in the vibration can be felt by my wife in the front passenger seat. It’s a reminder for me to not stay stationary and to get the blood flowing. Three vibrations in a row and then silence. Brief, gentle, and instructive.

Andy Hostetler, the pastor of Discovery Church in Cibolo, Texas, said these words that caught my attention. “Sometimes God whispers. A whisper is different than hearing someone’s voice.” I wrote those words down, and then 30 minutes later, toward the end of Andy’s Sunday morning message, my watch vibrated on my wrist.

Sometimes God thunders with a shout and sometimes He nudges us with a two-word momentary vibration. Whispers require a discerning spirit, clued in to the slight indications of the closeness of God. In a culture that is becoming more and more conditioned to yelling, whispers are seldom noticed.

A few decades ago Becky Pippert, author of the book, Out of the Saltshaker, was speaking at an American Baptist youth convention in Michigan. How do you keep several hundred high school students engaged with what God wants you to say? You show up and get laryngitis. Pippert could only whisper, and the power in her words was amplified by the whispering of her story.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible involves the Old Testament prophet Elijah hiding in a cave. Several powerful forces pass by: a wind that tears the mountain apart, an earthquake, and then a fire. After each of these noticeable events the scripture makes the point that “…God was not in them…”, but then we come to these words:

And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:12-13)

God was in the whisper. It was His whisper that he wanted Elijah to take notice of.

I’m glad I have vibrations, on my wrist not my hips. As I grow older and my hearing dulls, I need God to nudge me and speak to me with two words, “Let’s move!”

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