by James Douglas

Created on: May 15, 2008

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Psalms 29:3-8, "The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"

What's in a voice? Without being highly medical, our physical voice is produced by breath being exhaled from our lungs and vibrating over our vocal chords in the throat. The sound comes from this vibration and it combines with our jaw, teeth and tongue to produce audible words.

Now let's get back to that breath. God breathed into Adam and he came to life. We don't have an inherent ability to produce breath on our own but we inhale that which is around us and we exhale what's in us. This is about as technical as I want to go for now but here's the point.

Like you and I, when God speaks, His breath comes with it. Kind of gives definition to the passage, "The power of life and death is in the tongue". When you speak you are exhaling the air that came into you. So if you inhale life your exhaled breath has life in it so it combines with the tongue and you speak life. However if you inhale death, when you exhale you breathe out death and therefore speak dead words. Be careful whose voice you listen to because with their voice comes their breath and everything they have breathed in comes out when they speak. It's not just the odor that can kill you!

I'm so glad that our God is not dead but alive and unlike us, He generates His own breath because He's always been here. His environment is full of life all the time and He breathes out what He breathes in. The God Head; consisting of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in constant communication all the time so there is a constant circle of life between them. So when God speaks in our direction, His very essence comes out and it's full of power.

David depicts the voice of God as having the ability to break cedar. At first glance this might not sound too impressive because cedar is a soft wood. However, it's known for having a very strong aroma and for being durable. Fern trees stand tall in all kinds of weather and are

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