Voice Recognition

Last night I watched an old episode of Law & Order on one of the cable channels.  In this particular story line, 911 had received a call from a little girl named Maria claiming to have been taken from her parents.  She told female detective Olivia Benson that she hadn't eaten in a couple of days and that her captor never let her outside of her room and that he hurt her, and so did his friends. 

Broken-hearted for this child, Olivia talked to her on the telephone for over 2 hours, trying to calm her nerves and assure her that they were coming to save her.  Of course, the rescue wasn't that easy and because of an electronic device that Maria's captor had installed on the phone, police officers were unable to trace the call.  So Olivia kept talking.  She asked Maria dozens of questions, all in the hopes that one of her answers would help detectives determine her location.  And in the end, it worked.  They got to Maria just in time.  Her captor had knocked her out with chloroform and buried her alive.  Yet when they uncovered her and began CPR, Maria responded.  She was alive. 

When sweet little Maria opened her eyes, she saw a face she had never seen before.  Yet when the detective told her she was okay and she was safe now, Maria responded with, "Olivia."  She had never met Olivia before, had no idea what she looked like...but from that lengthy telephone conversation that led to her rescue, she recognized her voice.

Some voices are very recognizable to us, aren't they?  If your children are in another room and one of them calls out to you, can't you tell which one it is?  Before the days of Caller ID, weren't there certain voices on the other end of the line that we immediately recognized?  Our children, our spouse, our parents, close friends...we recognize the voices of those closest to us.  Some public figures have very distinctive voices that we recognize immediately.  Richard Nixon, George Jones, Billy Graham and Paul Harvey are just a few that I instantly know who they are when I hear their voice. 

What about the voice of God?  Do we recognize it?  Is it a voice that, like little Maria with Olivia, we recognize not because we've ever seen Him, but because the voice is familiar to us?  Or are we like young Samuel was when God called out to him during the night and he thought it was Eli calling.  Do we confuse God's voice with something else?  The only way to recognize God's voice is to hear it.  Are you listening? 

Question of the Day:  How does God speak to you?  In what ways do you hear His voice?