Daughters and Sons, Let Your Voice Arise

“Be seen and not heard”, “Be careful what you speak.” Fear and even religion can silence us into being passive bystanders in a world that seems to have so many voices saying nothing.

So, we can avoid the landmines and fireworks, and disappear in a land of scrolling other people’s journey’s as a substitute for actively summoning your own courage and voice…

Fear and discouragement can transform us from mouthpieces to quiet consumers, from exuberant participants to half-dead viewers of other people’s opinions, and ideas…

And before long, we forget who we are, disconnect with the body, and lose our identities in a world seeking to mold us into their idea of “wholeness”.

This life is not a trial run or spectator sport where we can isolate or quietly digest without engaging and testing.

We are called to use our voice for good, creativity, and the declaration of all He has done in our lives.

Daughters (and sons) there is a story inside you; thoughts, opinions, ideas…a world of creative wonders, dreams, and purposes that are desperately begging for expression through your voice.

Yet often, the first step to sliding into despair, fear, bitterness, or anger is caving to the lie that your thoughts, opinion, and ideas don’t matter.

The enemy loves intimidating, blocking, silencing and bullying us into not speaking.

Still, I don’t know your voice; the individual way God has created you to be used to speak to the world.

• Maybe you are a musician, a singer?
• Maybe you quickly engage the wallflowers or have been given the gift of encouragement
• Maybe you find your voice through carefully plunking out one carefully thought-out word after another on paper where nobody sees?
• Maybe your words flow freely and wildly and it seems there is no rhym or reason for them
• Maybe you were made to write; to sit down and unthread the thoughts and times, or wisdom of your very own heart?
• Maybe your only words are not to man, but those you cry outloud to God, with a closed door to your room, in your heart.

Whatever avenue your voice may take; whether it be a chatty, six-lane freeway, or an individual, dirt-way in the moutains of your thoughts…you were made to speak.

After all, the enemy loves passive prospectors; in homes, families, even in churches…

Those who sit mute and receive, who refuse to project back, give or contribute to the collective voice from their God-given identities. 

Because when we stop talking….

• We never face confrontations, or connect fully with the body of Christ
• We stop fully learning, failing to get our questions answered
• We can’t implement the fullness of His plans and purposes
• We quietly can let bitterness, anger, or hard-heartedness fester without other s knowing
• We can find no healing for the deception our minds might be harboring
• We hinder our own healing that comes with discussion with other people
• We isolate and don’t grow, harboring unresolved issues with other people
• We quench our God-given gifts that MUST be implimented through some style of voice or expression

Even God could have stayed up on His throne, become a one-way God, waving some magic wand…But instead, He got low, walked amongst us, and spoke to His people.

He didn’t engage and dictate from a pulpit. (It was the Pharisees who did that) Jesus stepped and bent down from man-made temples, went to the needy, and talked one-on-one with people like you and me.

And friend, pleases know, Jesus still longs to do that today. His sheep hear His voice.

But anytime we place up walls, stonewall ourselves from a world trying to teach us…we have already lost the battle.

We must not cave to the demands the enemy makes on us, to keep tight thoughts, lies and secrets…protect sin, support division, or coddle our own self-righteousness in the one way avenues of our minds.

See, Jesus?

• He was approachable, relational, engage-able.
• When He came to people, in complete Lordship, manifesting the power of healing and deliverance…He didn’t just shoot down lightening bolts from heaven….
• He didn’t stand on a stage commanding and demanding change….
• He got near people, one-by-one…stepping towards people, touching them, and often asking questions…drawing them out, to speak.

And I wonder what does Jesus find so powerful, He requires those He meets to speak; confessing their own sin, owning their own sickness, recognizing verbally their need for Him, loving dialogue, prodding His children to ask for healing?

Yes, He could have just waved some magic wand from the sky.

Still, isn’t it the same for us today?

That while the enemy longs to shove us back in some building, have us sit in large auditoriums, passively receiving the teaching of those who try to appear as though they have “gotten it all together”….

He whispers to us in the secret places, “I am near”.

He loves when we drown out the world and all its noises, turn off our phones and come speak to Him.

Even today, He calls us down from our Sicamore tree, and longs to sit and eat with us.

He draws near, when we receive Him, touching us with a grace we could not have found in some fold-up chair, in another Sunday service.

And it is there, writing in the dirt, washing off the mud, broken on the ground as our accusers display what’s wrong with us…He touches us. He calls us to speak.

Then, out of our healing…He leads us to go and be the hands and feet and voices of our deliverance, our testimony, His gospel displayed now, with our words to others.

Doesn’t Revelations tell us, our testimony slays all powers of the enemy?

It is the voice of this testimony satan hates and despises, deceiving and manipulating us so we will hide in fear, silence, and self-preservation.

Wickedness always cloaks itself in muteness, grows in the darkness of a mind uncovered to light and truth.

But sisters (and brothers), we can refuse to wear that same dark shroud of fear and hate, letting muteness, passively draw us from people and into the own warzone of our minds.

No, my brothes and sisters, you have a voice.

And I don’t know where you have been, the wounds and scars you hold. But what I do know is the message of your pain and your past holds no guilt. In His presence there is not shame. Jesus died for your full freedom. Let’s speak the testimony of His power and healing…

Let’s let our voices proclaim, “Look what He has done”!

In those words, “God, you are Lord”, all of heaven is undone. Even angels rejoice….

Then, He calls us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Preach it. Not just carry it, hold it, keep it, or live it….but PREACH it, SPEAK it, give VOICE to who Jesus is and what He has done.

Imagine love without words. A man loves his wife but never tells her, one thinks overwhelming thoughts of love about someone, but never speaks them.

Can we even love without words? Is it Biblical? When did we start thinking, love was doing and NOT 

saying?

We have a mandate sisters and brothers…to use our voices. And despite what heaviness y

ou might be feeling, what darkness, lies, discouragement, or 

deception people have told you or you might be thinking…you have a voice that was meant to influence the world.

There is power in the confession of a risen Lord who came to give you something more than a “good life”, He loosed you, so that you might share the expression of that great love with the world…through words.

And even in the crushing walls of your hardest circumstances…we can turn on worship music and still use our words to sing.

In fact, the power of the enemy has to flee, when we exalt our King with our whole hearts and words in the face of our darkest days.

Only one can be on the throne of our hearts at the same time. Will it be us, the enemies snare, or Jesus?

Seek Jesus…He will draw near, loose your tongue, give you expression, and I guarantee it…will call you at some point or other…

To speak.