As the doctor places the stethoscope over their chest to listen to their heart, I hold my breath, each time. It doesn’t matter how many times their hearts have been extensively checked, I still wait for the sound of the murmur.
The sound that rings out “all is not well.”
But it isn’t just at doctors appointments and it certainly isn’t just me. No, we are all surrounded by, listening to, and contributing to the murmur. If you read my post last week, Heavy, I was contributing to the murmur.
But as promised, I continued to read and seek Him. I came to the story of Sampson in Judges. A man who was deemed “dedicated to God from the womb” (Judges 13:5) and birthed from a mother who was considered barron, fell to the murmur. No one understood the source of Sampson’s strength and this made him subject to the murmur of everyone else. Have you ever noticed how much people will talk about someone else’s success and rarely is it to praise, but rather to understand the source of how they achieved such success? His wife succumbed to the murmur and for seven days begged Sampson to tell her the answer to a riddle. Sampson eventually gave in, resulting in anger, destruction, and losing his wife to another.
But like us, Sampson doesn’t learn from the power of the murmur and when he falls in love again with Delilah she wants to know more than an answer to the riddle, she wants to know the source of his strength. She begs him over and over again. Sampson eventually gives in to the murmur resulting in more destruction, imprisonment, and eventual death.
The murmur of others against us, can be very strong.
It can result in us slipping and doing what we know is not right, saying what we should hold close, and acting in a way we know to be untrue. The murmur isn’t just with others, it is within ourselves as well.
In Matthew 20:1-16 I was reminded of my own negative murmur in my heart. Here in this story told by Jesus we have a wealthy landowner who has hired workers for his vineyard. He promised them he would provide for them at the end of the day. There were no problems until an hour before quitting time, when some others joined the workers in the vineyard.
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
Are you feeling a murmur of the heart right now? Do you too agree this is “not fair”? This is often the struggle of my internal murmur.
When we compare ourselves to others, the internal struggle with what is “fair” and what we think we deserve consumes our thoughts and actions.
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.
The landowner did indeed keep his promise. I was again reminded this week of the promise I felt from God down a lonely, empty hallway. He promised me I would be ok and I am ok, I am more than ok.
15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
All of this is His will. It is not mine or yours. He gives according to who He is, not what we deserve. Honestly, thank goodness because if we stacked all my sin in a pile, He has given me far more than I deserve.
So this week as the murmur of our own hearts whisper in discontentment, pity, victimization, blame, sorrow, and despair remember who He is. Remember the promises He has made and always continue to seek His word for your peace.
