Panic arose from my stomach to my face. Immediately, this mama’s eyes switched from casual browsing through a clothes’ rack to scanning every nook of the store’s floor with the visual acuity of a hawk. With the speed of lightning, my toddler, Christian, who just a second ago was beside me, was now nowhere in sight. As I scurried passed several clothing racks calling my son’s name out loud, I spotted him. Relief brought back the color and warmth that must have left my face. Hearing my voice, he turns around and sees me, then simultaneously lets go of the total stranger’s skirt.
He has always been that way. He loves to hang on to my skirt or hold on to my hand. I believe holding on to my skirt has been a kind of his security blanket. He was just holding on to mine before this entire scenario played out. However, something drew his attention that made him wander off. And this mama got too busy oohing and aahing over the sale items to notice.
Does this experience sound familiar to you?
No guilt trip intended here. I think most of us have been there (concluding this based on the many stories I have heard and read from friends, family, and strangers).
When my son heard my voice, he recognized it, realized he was clinging on to an unknown person’s skirt, not mine, and came running back to me. He discerned my voice because he has heard it since he was in my womb. He heard it while growing up and as he listened to me reading bedtime stories to him. Hours we’ve spent talking, laughing, and just being together etched my voice in his mind.
Neurobiologist Daniel Abrams and his team from the University of Stanford School of Medicine conducted a study on the power of a mother’s voice with twenty-four 7-to-12-year-old participants. While being hooked up to an MRI machine to record their brain waves, the children listened to a recording of no-nonsense words spoken by their mother and those of other women. In less than a minute, they accurately identified their mother’s voice 97% of the time. The researchers also found that the mother’s voice triggered activity in a wide area of her child’s brain. The team likened this pattern of brain activity to a neural fingerprint on a child’s brain. (https://nypost.com/2016/10/23/how-babies-know-their-mothers-voice-even-in-the-womb/).
Jesus talks about voice recognition as well. In John 10:27 He says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
But how do we recognize His voice amid the noise that is around us? How do we teach our children to discern His voice from their own or the enemy’s?
1 Samuel 3 shows us. One night while laying down in the LORD’s temple where God’s ark was, Samuel heard a voice calling him. Thinking it was Eli, the high priest who called, he goes to him saying, “Here I am; you called me.” Two times Eli denies calling Samuel and sends him back to bed.
On Samuel’s third return, Eli realizes it was the LORD calling Samuel. He instructs Samuel when he hears the call again to say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.” Samuel heard the voice again, and he responded, “Speak, for your servant hears.” (1 Samuel 3:10b). In the NIV version it says, “Then Samuel said, ‘Speak for your servant is listening.” The notes explain that listening means “‘to hear with a view of obeying,’ Samuel was listening to God’s Word and was determined to obey it.” Then, the LORD spoke to Samuel, calling him to his first prophetic assignment. (1 Samuel 3:11-14).
Samuel did not recognize the LORD’s voice because “he did not yet know the LORD and the LORD’s word had not yet been revealed to him.” (1 Samuel 3:7). Samuel needed to know and connect to the LORD to recognize His voice. Eli taught him how.
We find another voice recognition story in Acts 12:3-19. In this passage we read the story of Peter’s rescue out of prison by an angel. When the angel left him, Peter went up to Mary’s house where people were gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance and without opening the door, Rhoda, the servant girl recognized Peter’s voice. Several commentaries note that the reason she knew it was Peter was because she had heard him preach and converse with Mary’s family on previous occasions.
Connection brings recognition.
Jesus tells us in John 15:4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” We are to keep our connection with Him and be ready to listen. Unless we remain connected to Him, we will not recognize His voice, continue to hear it well, nor produce the fruits He wants in our lives.
In the same way, dear Mamas, as we continue to abide in God, let us maintain our connection with our children. The world’s voices are loud. They need to hear us speak God’s Words in the way we talk and live. This way, they will know and distinguish not only our voice, but most especially the LORD’s and not be deceived to follow a stranger or the enemy of their souls.