NOISE!

I flew to Houston and back to Dallas yesterday to do the honors for a wedding.

Well, “do the honors” makes it sounds like I was the groom or something. No fears. Sony and Ann did the honors. I helped them along. I was the preacher.

All this to say, I flew to Houston and back. Which means I did two long stints in Dallas Love Field and Houston Hobby—anything longer than two minutes in an airport is a loooooong stint for me! And two long plane rides, each of about 65 minutes, one up and one down. I know, you’re saying, “Abe, it’s only 65 minutes.”

Yeah? Put yourself in an aluminum box attached to a couple of powerful machines that produce thousands of explosions per minute and drive huge metal pistons that assault the aluminum box at the same rate. Then put this box a mile high in the sky. Moving at 500 mph—i.e., like a tornado coming at you. Don’t forget to strap yourself to your seat! Add a crying baby or two. All in all, about 100dB.

Listen, more than 120 seconds of that is too much. Just too much.

For several years, I wandered aimlessly in airports and sat listlessly in airplanes wearing orange earplugs. (And, yes, I’ve been known to do that for loud wedding receptions as well, yesterday’s excepted.) They worked well. Close to utter silence.

But I’m getting better. In-ear headset/earphones + iPhone + Bach. Bliss!

That’s my personal anti-noise device to keep ye olde tympanum and cochlea happy, pulse calm, and blood pressure peaceful. I made it through. Successfully.

Judging from wires innumerable dangling from ears uncountable, I’m not the only one to undertake such preventive measures.

Actually, anti-noise is much more intricate. Headphones with anti-noise generators have microphones that sample ambient noise. Then by means of intricate circuitry, mirror images of those sound waves, but 180° out of phase with the noise, are produced so that pressure waves of the noise are canceled out by the “anti-noise”—the phenomenon of destructive interference. The result is silence.

The noise in the world is loud, too loud. Antagonism. Opposition. Tumult. Trauma. Faithlessness. Fearfulness. Discord. Discontent. Incapacitating us, undermining our resolve, sapping our strength. Loud noises all around. And we are just about ready to give up.

Job situation tenuous, finances a mess, health falling apart, kids going astray.
Loud noises and getting louder still.

But we do have anti-noise. The voice of God. His promises.

The voice that promises us the constancy of His presence ….

“I will never desert you,
nor will I ever forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5

No, we are never alone. Never.

The voice that promises us the sufficiency of His grace ….

“My grace is sufficient for you.”
2 Corinthians 12:9

Yes, we have all we need. All.

The voice that promises the inseparability of His love ….

For I am convinced that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other created thing,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38–39

No, nothing can remove us from God’s love. Nothing.

And so, with God’s people of old, let us hear …

“Hear, O Israel!
The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart and
with all your soul and
with all your might.”
Deuteronomy 6:4–6

Hear. Listen. Drown out the world’s cacophony with God’s anti-noise.