Timbre

I’m not sure how early I woke this morning. When I finally decided to check the time on my phone it was 1:19 a.m. Getting older I find that my rhythms of sleep are different than they used to be. Maybe the 12-hour Pseudoephedrine that I took over 12 hours ago is still going strong. Being in the business of being thoughtful and creative, I find that sometimes inspiration can be hard to find. Months ago I penned the themes for this year’s magazines, the one for this issue is Timbre. It’s a theme I’m particularly eager to share with you because it’s so important, dynamic, nuanced, and yet kinda weird to explain – – – especially from a spiritual perspective. But, before I do that, take a listen to what I heard at 1:27 a.m.

Featured photo above is from Arian Fernandez provided free-to-use and obtained through Pexels.com

The Mockingbird sings at night to attract a mate. Up on the rooftop in the moonlight it was singing continuously in its quest for a partner. While it’s quite beautiful and remarkably varied, after a while, especially if you’re wanting to go back to sleep it can be very annoying.

Paul in the Bible says, “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” It’s really worth reading the whole thought he shares so you can get the full context. However, the clanging cymbal description is, brass (pun intended). The reality is that too often we’re noisy with brazen self-assurance. Like the Mockingbird we can go on and on continuously day after day, monthly, for years – a whole lifetime often as a clanging cymbal to others. We text, talk, post, yell, argue, cry, complain, laugh, gasp and much more almost non-stop. And in truth much of it is our human nature trying one way or another to call out for our true mate – God.

HOW TO HEAR GOD’S VOICE

Amidst all the daily noise of others and ourselves how do we find God? How can we know it’s God we’re hearing? That’s why timbre is such an important spiritual concept to understand. The simple definition of timber, a musical term, is: The combination of (or unique) qualities of a sound that distinguishes it from other sounds. It’s how you easily identify the voice of your favorite musician singing. AND it’s how you can definitively say, “Yes, that is God speaking to me.”

We’re spiritually designed to be like a unidirectional microphone. Years ago, when I recorded audio with a film crew I used a Sennheiser brand shotgun mic. It has “extreme directivity, reliably capturing distant sounds with the best quality even under the toughest conditions.” What that means is it’s able to focus on the sound immediately in front of it and cancel out sounds that are all around it. It’s how recordings have been made, with remarkable clarity, of a single person in a noisy crowd (think football game or celebrity appearance). Here’s a demonstration. Get the idea?

On a spiritual level, the Bible is your tool to cancel unwanted, loud and distracting sounds. With it you can experience life in such a way that you’re in the world but not of it. While others are tossed to and fro with every teaching and belief you can be steady. It’s all there, in the Bible, but you have to feed on it, until it is deep within you. When you do that then (more than a maybe, a best guess, a feeling or a desperate hope) you know the nature of God.

KNOW AND OBEY

Ever since I read the story in the Bible of Samuel hearing God’s voice, I always found it fascinating that God speaks to us. Dramatizations like the one below make it appear quite incredible.

What’s more incredible is that God wants you and me – all of us to know His voice – the unique qualities of His voice that distinguishes Him from all others. The timbre of God’s voice is undeniably different. You may not be able to put your finger on it exactly but it is clearly different – counter culture. That makes it unmistakable.

The timbre of God’s voice is also serious. Something to be reverenced, even feared. God is uncompromisingly reliable, which gives us comfort but also demands our obedience.

The timbre of God’s voice becomes familiar. You start to recognize it in all it’s forms: affirming, compassionate, instructive, challenging and more. Like a thread woven through time it’s evidence is constant, gives you confidence, soothes you and beckons you.

The timbre of God’s voice in your life is active. The visionary and purposeful nature of God calls you to be actionable. This is doing with direction. It achieves outcomes that can only be known when you have faith and then be faithful.

BE A SAMUEL

You know, I don’t know what it was like for Samuel to hear God’s voice or how he must have felt to realize, “Wow, that’s God – talking to ME!” But, I do know I got up this morning, compelled for some reason to pay closer attention. Nobody else. No agenda. I didn’t make a cup of coffee or check my phone for whatever.

Getting up this time was different – I mean I just had a sense of knowing this was purposefully different. I was impressed that God wanted to have a serious appointment with me to admonish, instruct and challenge me. Similar to that time I committed my life to Christ there was a familiar closeness of God. It gave me the inspiration I needed. It was the active release of His Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but I find that I often have an aching to connect with God. There’s a deeper relational need – a thirsting that wants to be satisfied. I don’t think we need to wait until we can get outdoors to break away from the clutter of life. God is aggressively, relentlessly calling us. We need to recognize the timbre of His voice, then listen, then obey.

Adventure fully in Christ,

-Brad Bloom, Publisher

USE THESE TO GET MORE FAMILIAR WITH THE CONCEPT OF TIMBRE

This video quiz let’s you test your sense of voice timbre.

And this quiz let’s you kind of test you sense of Bible timbre.