White Noise

By Bethany Lashbrook

This Week’s Verse: Genesis 1:31 "God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!" (MSG)

Devotion:

Recently, my family took a trip to Florida and enjoyed seven days at the beach! I did something that I had never done before – I swam in the ocean. I have been to the ocean several times but never have I went below knee deep. Do you know what I discovered past all of those waves? It’s calm, it’s quiet and it’s nice!

Being out in the ocean – even to where I couldn’t touch – was amazing! I couldn’t hear the kids on the beach. I wasn’t thinking about possible sharks eying my meaty legs. It was just the ocean, God, and myself. It was incredible to me that more than half of the Earth is water, and yet I hadn’t experienced it like God intended it to be…precious, living water. I had been too scared to enjoy the beauty of it. But, internally looking at it gave it a whole new meaning!

I looked up white noise and the definition was so long and scientific that I was frustrated until I came upon this sentence: “white noise is a good masking agent”. John 1:10
(NIV) states, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” I wonder what white noise people were listening to when Jesus arrived on Earth? Why didn’t they recognize him? What white noise had I been listening to being afraid all of those years to enter the ocean? After all, it is God’s creation.

When God created the world, imagine how quiet it was before people started changing it. Until recently, I didn’t understand simple practices such as yoga, quiet prayer or (imagine this) just silence.

Deliberately slowing our world down, ridding our lives of the white noise to absorb God’s creation so we can become one with Him.

Now, that’s a vacation.

Dear Lord, thank you for this beautiful Earth. Thank you for letting us come across stunning scenery like the open sea on a sunny day, the beautiful snow-capped mountains out west, and the rainbows after the rain. Help us to remember that this world is your Creation and that we need to filter out the white noise some days to enjoy it as you have intended. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Application: Is there any white noise in your life? What can you do to slow down and enjoy God’s creation?

Power Verses:

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (KJV)

Psalm 23:2 "He makes me to lie down in green pastures; 
He leads me beside the still waters." (NKJV)

Isaiah 32:17 "The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever." (NIV)