I’m often surprised by the things that God uses to speak to me… This week it was a science podcast which I listened to on an aeroplane in the hope it would help me to get some sleep, but which turned out to be really rather interesting.

The piece I was listening to featured a man who, having become blind as a teenager, has developed the ability to sense the space around him – walls, doors, objects – by a form of hearing called echo location.  Either by the sound of his footsteps our by making a clicking noise with his tongue he was able to sense the shape of a room, location of barriers, and a clear way forward.  It’s apparently not uncommon for people with impaired vision to be able to do this, and it can even be learned by sighted people.

A few days later I felt God whispering to me about this ‘super sense’.  Was there something in this picture about how we can learn to walk by faith and not by sight?  Could we develop a greater ability to sense the presence of God, of barriers and of safe ways ahead?

The thing that really struck me about this sense was that it involved both making a noise and also a deep form of listening, so deep in fact that the person doing it wasn’t aware of it as a sound, but as a ‘kind of change in pressure’.   I’ve spent time before thinking about the importance of stillness and listening in sensing the presence of God, but not much of the part that could be played by the sounds I make with my mind and my spirit.

I wonder if this explains something of why I find it easy to sense God’s presence when my heart is worshipping?   My worship has an echo, perhaps only barely audible – which helps me to sense his presence.

So I’m choosing to worship just a little bit more.. To take a few minutes, every now and again in the day to tell God how wonderful he is, to list through his names, to call out the praise that rises up in my heart.  I’ll let you know how it works out!

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