Not So Strange

All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

(John 10:8)

A few years ago I learned about a pattern of the brain that causes people to give the most attention to what frightens them the most. It is called fear-tracking. This tendency is produced when a person is brought up in an atmosphere where fear is used as a means of motivation. Whatever or whomever can produce the most fear in a person is the direction they will tend to go or the people they will tend to submit to.

There are many variations of this tendency that can be seen in much of our lives. Many enjoy watching movies that frighten them. Of course there are the hard-core horror movie fans, but even a casual overview of many of the mainstream movies offered on TV or in the theater reveal a great amount of fear woven throughout the themes. It is part of our condition of sin to somehow be attracted by violence and fear. Our addiction to force causes us to thrive on stories or movies that involve the use of force in various ways. Fear is one of the main staples of most entertainment and is also reflected in the way we treat each other in most of our relationships.

As soon as the labels of thieves and robbers comes up, fear is very likely to be involved. No one really wants to have their possessions stolen or their bodies or houses robbed. This involves a violation of our privacy, our dignity, our safety and well-being. Yet we often find satisfaction in watching these very same things happen to others on the screen. We become very fascinated both in watching scenes involving these things or in listening to accounts from others about the latest robbery or someone's account of a house being vandalized.

Recently I have come under strong conviction that I need to take a much more active role in limiting the amount of such thinking that I allow into my imagination. Like everyone else, it is very easy for me to become quickly absorbed by the entertainment magnetism of such accounts, whether it be in a movie or related by the news. Most news is designed to relay as quickly and graphically as possible all the terrible things happening around the world. Our culture has an obsession with feeling we have to be up on the news or somehow life is incomplete for us. We feel guilty if we are not aware of all the latest tragedies and violations going on around the world like everyone else.

But I see something rather compelling and convicting in this verse. Jesus says explicitly that His sheep don't hear the voices of those who are thieves or robbers. Does that mean they are deaf and can't hear them? Of course not. It means that they have not chosen to listen to those voices and become acquainted with them through repeated listening. They have chosen to listen consistently to a different voice that is very unlike what is so familiar to nearly everyone else. They are listening to the beat of a different drummer.

We have very little concept of how urgent this is or how important our daily choices affect the formation of our character and determine our destiny. We are so used to listening and watching what is viewed as just normal and even important in our world that we give little thought to what this is doing to our heart and how it affects our spirit. Yet the more honest I become in observing what goes on in my mind and imagination whenever I listen to accounts of injustice, the more horrified I am at the response of anger, bitterness and the potential for violence inside. Just because no one else can perceive what is elicited in the secret recesses of my heart makes little difference. The world's system of communication is designed to produce these very things in the soul and it is my job to pay attention to and control as much as possible the channels through which they come to me.

It is very easy to assume that I am one of God's sheep while paying little attention to the condition of my own spirit and imagination. But this is the nature of deception and sin. I need to examine Jesus' descriptions here of what His sheep are like and measure my own life with those things to see what is really true. Many will come to find out too late that all along they were certain they were faithful Christians only to discover that they really didn't know God personally at all. They knew a great deal about God and religion and how to keep up appearances, but they allowed too many other distractions to fill their heart and find themselves unfit to live in the presence of holy angels and with God. They thought they were God's sheep but discovered to their horror that they were deceived all that time.

Jesus says that His sheep know and hear His voice and follow Him willingly. They do not have to be compelled or driven or frightened into submission. They love Him and eagerly follow wherever He leads them because they know His voice. This, according to Jesus, is their primary motivation for following Him. At the same time they are unfamiliar with the voice of anyone else who tries to get their attention through other means and they stay away from such strangers.

Either the voice of thieves and robbers is going to sound strange to me or the voice of Jesus is going to be foreign. Which one is true is going to be determined largely by how I choose to relate to both of them. If I spend my time immersed in the usual channels of thinking familiar to those all around me, it is likely the voice of thieves and robbers is not going to sound very strange to my heart. But the mortal danger in this is that if these kind of voices remain familiar to me, then the voice of Jesus is most likely going to be strange no matter how much I may profess otherwise.

Father, help me to stay away from strangers and all that seeks to make their voices familiar to me. I want to be more intentional in learning to know Your still small voice, to have Your voice be familiar rather than the competing voices that demand attention or allure me with their attractions. Wean me away from all the media and other sources that seek to keep the world's voices familiar. Train my ears to become familiar and comfortable with the atmosphere of heaven, to become more tuned to the voices and music of heaven, to be transformed into the ways of thinking and relating that is normal in heaven. Fill my life with Your grace today and make me an instrument of Your peace.