The Woman at the Whiteboard

I saw a strange thing. I was at one of those 3-day conferences. The worship time was over, and we were waiting for the speaker to step up to the platform. There was a large whiteboard next to the podium so I anticipated the speaker would be using it as he spoke. But I was mistaken.

The speaker walked up to the podium, and as he was greeting us, a woman stepped up to the whiteboard, took up a marker, and stood at the ready. I guessed that she would somehow be illustrating the speaker’s points on the whiteboard. This should be interesting, I thought. 

As the man at the podium began to speak, the woman at the whiteboard would sometimes write down a point, and sometimes not. Sometimes she would write, “Listen to this!” just before the speaker shared a particularly profound insight. Obviously she knows his outline and what he’s going to say, I thought. Sometimes she would rephrase a point differently than he spoke it, and sometimes she would make a point that he didn’t even make! 

What is going on here? Does he know what she’s doing? I wondered to myself. This woman obviously has her own agenda and is using the situation to make her own points! But the speaker never turned to see what she was writing.

I couldn’t help myself after a while. My eyes were fixed upon the woman to see what she would write as the man spoke. It was like a dance between them, sometimes beautiful, sometimes awkward. But my attention was fixed upon this dance, not knowing what to think.

And then I understood. I had been wrestling with my response to messages by some believers. Sure, we all put our fingerprints on what God gives us before we pass it along. But sometimes the messenger overly muddles the message. Holy Spirit crafted this image to teach me. 

The woman in the story is the Holy Spirit—emphasizing some points, ignoring others, writing things not said. While I often posture myself to hear what the person is saying, God wants me to hear what Holy Spirit is saying. While I am to honor the person speaking, God’s real agenda is to bend my ear to what Holy Spirit is saying through the speaker, or perhaps even in spite of them. I listen to the speaker’s words with my head, and I listen to Holy Spirit’s words with my heart. 

God wants this to be my posture when I read a book, watch a video, or listen to the news. He wants this of me when I engage in a warm conversation with a friend, or a casual exchange with the cashier at the store. There is more being said than what my ears can hear, if I have the heart to listen.

God is present in my moments, and he has something to say. In my every encounter in this world, he invites me hear his message regardless of how well, or how poorly, the messenger relays it. 

My Father, I accept your invitation. Give me a heart to listen for your words in the messages from the ones you love.