
19 Jan Dead Air
I had a radio career that spanned three and a half decades. One of the first things I was taught was: “NO DEAD AIR.” Dead air is unplanned silence, usually the result of human error. To a station owner, dead air is throwing away inventory, as if a lumber company employee threw brand new 2×4’s into a woodchipper. You must experience this to understand how ingrained it becomes in you to always have sound on the air. I’ve been out of radio for seven years and I still get a mental twitch when I hear dead air on a radio station. We can have the same reaction when we experience dead air from God. We ask: “Why has God stopped broadcasting? When will He start speaking to me again?”
In radio, my response to dead air was to discover why sound had stopped coming out of the speakers. Is it a technical failure or human error? As I mentioned earlier, it’s almost always human error. Dead air from God is always on our end not His end.
- We’ve stopped asking (or asking for the wrong things)
- We’ve stopped listening
- We’ve stopped trusting
We’ve stopped asking:
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 (NIV)
5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. Luke 11:5-8 (NIV)
In both the verse from Matthew and the passage from Luke, Jesus is urging us to be persistent in asking God. But it’s critical to understand that God wants us to ask for what we need to fulfill His purpose for our lives, not our personal wants and desires. Nothing creates spiritual dead air faster than asking for things to prop up what Paul Tripp calls “the kingdom of me.”
We’ve stopped listening:
I’ve discovered that because of my experience, I notice radio dead air much more quickly than other people. But we can also listen to the radio for hours and not hear a single word or musical note. The radio is passively playing in the background as we go about our lives. We do this with God too.
If we have received the Holy Spirit, He will speak to us often. Dead air isn’t the problem, although we believe it is. It’s that we’re not hearing and reacting to God’s promptings in us through His Holy Spirit.
We’ve stopped trusting:
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Matthew 9:20-21 (NIV)
“The bleeding woman” is a perfect example of reaching out to Jesus in faith. There was no logical reason for her to believe touching His garment would heal her. There is no logical reason to believe someone we cannot hear with our ears will answer us. But when we reach out in faith, He does!
Have you been experiencing spiritual dead air lately? Ask, listen, and trust, and you will hear God as clear as a bell!
Pastor Jerry Bader
No Comments