The Voices We Hear.

I finished reading the book Following the Light of Christ into His Presence by John Pontius recently. I liked it so much that I re-read it right after and then went over one section several times to get a better understanding. John’s insights on the voices we hear inside our heads have been life changing for me. I recommend his book for anyone trying to live a Christ centered life.
I will do the best I can to summarize what I learned and why it means so much to me. John shares that there is a distinction in the voices we hear in our minds. He explains that we confuse our own voice with other voices. Our voice is one that is analytical and questioning. We consistently ask questions and breakdown thoughts and feelings. There are other voices that enter our mind. Another voice is one that tells us the difference between right and wrong or consciousness or a form of the divine light invested in each of us from our creator. This voice is simple and direct. It says, “help that person, stealing is wrong, hurting others is bad, be kind.” The words come with a feeling in the form of consequence. You feel good when you do good or you feel bad when you do bad. In short, it’s like you let a little light into your soul when you do good or you let a little out when you do bad. This voice is a gift that guides each human soul. The more you listen, the more you become like Christ.
John speaks of other voices such as God, his son Jesus and the Holy Ghost. God may speak a commandment or an assurance into you mind. I’ve felt his voice give me assurances that I’m on the right path in life in the form of a feeling or even words such as, “I am pleased or feed my sheep.” These are rare and very special moments. More commonly I hear the word of Lord while reading holy scripture and feeling the words as directly important to me right now in my life. My favorite pattern of feeling the words of God is to wake up early and start my day with thoughtful prayer followed by a full scripture study session between 30 minutes and an hour. I then journal the insights that came to me while reading. I often find my journal filling up with valuable personal insights.
John speaks of other voices from the adversary and his evil spirits. These spirits can not read our minds but can apparently hear or perceive when the Holy voices prompt us to do something good. When the good prompting comes in, we almost immediately start to hear their negative spin on things. You may hear a clear prompting that says, “stop and help this person.” Your voice may analyze and say, “Do I have time to help?” The adversarial voice will say, “someone else will do it.” John says that the adversarial voice rarely stops with one argument, but instead will keep talking. “You don’t know how to help, don’t bother, they probably don’t need your help, they are probably faking it, etc.” This has been extremely insightful to me upon learning this. I didn’t realize how profound these influential voices had been in my life. The lines between my voice, the Holy voices, and the dark voices had been blurred way to often. John’s insights feel true to me and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks paying attention to all of these voices and they are becoming clearer, like tuning the dial on the radio just right.
As I’ve tuned my radio more clearly. I’ve found it uncomfortable to notice such direct darkness trying to influence me. I’ve found that when I miss a scripture study session, or allow my frustration or anger to get the best of me or I watch a mature rated show on Netflix that those negative voices have more power in affecting how I feel about myself. I’ve decided that it may in fact be harder to be a fence sitter or lukewarm than it is to fully invest in a Christ Centered Life. I don’t think of myself a fence sitter in general; however I have my days, my moments, (my?) negative self talk. In the end it seems the negative voices have but one goal. “convince you to believe their words and not that of Gods.” They would have us completely disconnected from God and enter into a place of perceived happiness on the surface, it’s make-up on a Pig. Underneath is muddy misery like unto themselves. (no offense to nice pigs) It seems logical that these evil spirits would spend most of their efforts on the undecided voters, fence sitters, or lukewarm souls. I’ve seen good friends express a relief after leaving the gospel behind or even that their marriages have never been better. Perhaps the pressure is off for a while as the dark voices can leave them to self destruction after disconnecting from the Lord. Why push a bolder that is already rolling down the mountain?
We are nearing the second coming of Christ. There are signs a plenty but none so much as the ever widening gap between the voice of God and that of the adversary. The world has never had more entertainment, distractions, and ways to stay busy. You can completely get lost in endless and meaningless stuff for a whole lifetime. The voices are blaring on social media, on TV, on the internet, in explicit movies, magazines and right in your own head. I’m doing the best I can to know the voice of the master when he calls. It is up to you and me to learn those good voices and help others tune in as well. The truth is in plain thought, and those that seek will hear it. A special thank you to John Pontius for having the courage to write such an influential work. I can only imagine the barrage of negative voices that tried to stop him along the way.
