After a long day of ministry, Team 1.38 gathers in the living room for team time, as we do every night. Once we go through our typical feedback, our fearless leader Sarah tells us we’re doing a team activity to close out our night. I was freakin pumped– I love team activities.
We all head outside as she proceeds to give us our instructions. She ask for two volunteers: one to be blindfolded and one to be the leader.
A blindfold… again? After training camp, blindfolds have become my worst nightmare.
Yeah, I’m out on this one…
The sun has long been down. We’re all standing in a circle in the front yard of our homestead in the dark. Our first volunteers raise their hands. Kelcie and Lexi, my sweet friends. Sarah explains that Kelcie will be blindfolded and that Lexi has to guide her to find two boots placed sporadically in the yard. Lexi begins talking right beside Kelcie to give her direction and guidance. Sarah leads Kelcie away and then turns to the rest of us. We’re to misguide Kelcie by speaking wrong instruction and distracting her with other voices.
One right voice and eight others screaming random things at you… Yeah, good luck with that girlie.
“Okay Kelcie, step to the right and walk forward until I tell you to stop. Now bend down and reach to the left for the boot.”
After a few frustrating pauses from Kelcie to hear many redirections from Lexi, they finally collected both boots from the yard.
We huddle back in our big circle. Round two.
“Two more volunteers please.”
Carl and Hannah step up to the plate. Sarah sends Hannah away blindfolded, then tells Carl she can only whisper to Hannah to guide her.
I giggle a little. Sure, last round they succeeded because Kelcie was speaking loudly, but there’s no way they find the boots when Carl can only whisper to Hannah while we all scream at her.
The round starts and we all immediately start screaming at Hannah. The poor blinded girl couldn’t hear a thing, but then she slowly starts tuning her ears to hear Carl’s voice. She’s guided across the front yard to the first boot. Sarah sneaks up and says I can distract Carl now from getting to hannah.
Let’s go! I pick Carl up and carry her away from Hannah. Carl still tries to whisper to her but Hannah looks visibly confused without hearing from her fearless leader.
I release Carl and she goes back to guide Hannah to the second shoe within minutes. A job well done by my friends.
Back to our circle huddle for round 3.
“Our last blindfolded volunteer, please.”
Bethany raises her hand.
Sarah blindfolds Bethany and leaves her to stand in the dark alone. She returns to give us instructions.
“For this last round, Cortland will be guiding Bethany to the boots, but Bethany doesn’t know that. Everyone else’s job is to convince Bethany that you are her leader and she should be listening to you.”
Well. This should be fun…
I immediately run up to Bethany and tell her that I’m going to guide her to the boots and for her to not listen to anyone else. Quickly, the seven other girls do the same thing. I tell her to walk forward and turn to her left and right while the other girls are giving her simultaneous random instructions.
At this point, I’m not sure who Bethany has decided to listen to; but nonetheless, she’s walking around the yard.
After a few more minutes, it’s evident she’s decided to follow Kelcie’s voice (for what reason? No one knows). Kelcie aimlessly guides her left, right, in circles, around a bush (unknown to Bethany at this point), while Cortland is trying to convince Bethany that she is the true leader who has been chosen to guide Bethany to the boots.
“Bethany, listen to me,” Cortland pleads, “I’m your leader. I will guide you to the boots if you just listen to my voice. Stop listening to the others, they’re just distracting you!”
On and on Cortland begs Bethany to listen to her. Cortland just wants to complete the task given to her, but it seems impossible to get Bethany to change.
Kelcie starts to guide her farther away from the boots… All the way to the pool.
At this point, I’ve now stepped back since Bethany is very clearly being guided in the wrong direction. I have no need to distract her anymore, so I simply watch. Bethany is still following Kelcie’s voice, thinking she is the one who was picked to guide her to the shoes. In Bethany’s mind, she’s listening so well.
And, I guess, she is, but to the wrong voice.
Cortland absolutely losses it at this point. She’s jumping up and down in front of Bethany, screaming at her to listen to her and to ignore everyone else. Yet it’s no use– Bethany has shut out any other voice but Kelcie’s.
“GO TO NINEVEH!!” Cortland screams. The team busts out into laughter.
A little background for this to make any sense: At our care point, our team has been performing Bible story skits to tell the kids. One day, we chose Jonah and the Whale. We begin casting roles to play in the story, and my team member Carl had the best part to play. She, being the Lord telling Jonah to go to the terrible city of Nineveh, played the part well, cupping her hands around her mouth, and in her deepest Godly voice commanded, “JONAH. GO TO NINEVEH.” Since this day, our whole team has used this to joking get our points across (because how could you not hear something when it’s said so blatantly?). Anyways, back to the activity.
Surely, after Bethany heard Cortland scream this, she would finally hear and understand that Cortland was the true leader, and thus start letting Cortland guide her.
Welp, that wasn’t the case. Bethany continued to do her own thing. Sounds just like that Jonah guy in the Bible.
After about eight minutes of being misguided, Sarah stepped in and told Bethany that Cortland was the leader and that she should listen to her now. Evaluating Sarah’s words and choosing to listen, two minutes in of switching to Cortland, Bethany was successfully guided to both boots and the round was finally over.
We circled up for a debrief of the activity.
“Alright guys, what did we think about that?” Sarah said, waving the bandana in her hands.
Hannah spoke up. “At first it was hard to hear the voice of whoever was leading me, but I started to focus in on Carl’s voice and she became the only person I tried listening to.”
“I was confused,” Bethany explained, “I was being guided by Kelcie, but I never found any of the boots, so I started to question if I should continue following her even if we weren’t fulfilling the goal of the activity quickly.”
“I enjoyed distracting Bethany and thought it was fun causing her to go the wrong way,” Kelcie said smugly.
Yikes.
We all stopped and immediately realized: That’s exactly how the devil feels when he distracts us.
The devil throws us some crazy curveballs to distract us from hearing the Lord. But also, sometimes he gives us pleasing things to turn our desires away from the Lord, which aren’t as easy to notice. He’s a sneaky dude, that devil. He giggles when we pick up our phones from our nightstand instead of our Bibles. He claps for us when we skip another Sunday of church to sleep in. And boy, does he cheer when we go days without any form of communion with Jesus because we’re “too busy”.
Just like all my teammates instructing their partner amidst the chaos, God does the same with us. He’s in constant communication with us and wants nothing but to guide us to truth, life, joy, and holiness. And just like my squamates struggled to hear their partner (or flat out ignored them) we do the same thing. We get so focused on other people or things speaking into our lives that we take no time to listen to the One who created us. That breaks His heart every time.
We go through life saying we listen to what the Lord speaks to us, but if we’re honest… Sometimes we don’t even know what His voice sounds like. We finish our daily Bible study just to check off the box of our reading plan, not remembering what we read by lunch time. We pray quickly for the Lord to bless our day, then thank Him as we lay our head down at night… But do we ever stop to listen to what He has to say back to us?
One way relationships aren’t relationships at all.
But the God I serve is the most intentional pursuer there ever was and ever will be. Our Good Shepherd. Praise be to Him.
John 10 names God as the Good Shepherd.
“I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (vs. 11)
“I know my own and my own know me” (vs.14)
“the sheep follow him, for they know his voice” (vs.4)
Sheep! Sheep are silly wandering animals who are easily distracted. They’re not the smartest creatures, but they do one thing well: They remember their shepherd’s voice and can hear it from far off, even as they go about their grazing.
I crave to be a sheep who knows my Shepherd’s voice so well that I can decipher it out of a thousand other voices around me. My prayer is that you crave it as well.
Lord, help me to drown out all other voices to only follow Yours. The devil throws so many enticing distractions my way to turn my ears off from Your words, but I pray for discernment– to see those moments as distractions and to turn back to You. I strive to learn more of what Your voice sounds like so I’m able to hear You always, even in a gentle whisper. Give me the discipline to sit in silence and practice listening to You. Thank you for being a good shepherd who pursues me well and desires intimate relationship with me. To You be all the glory. Amen.
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