How to be Heard

J. M. Huxley
Mar 24, 2019
2 min read

Is it just me, or is the world getting louder?

We all have a lot to say, critical opinions we must share, so much that the planet needs to hear! Now, more than ever before, it seems our voices are powerful, our words potentially endless, as if what comes off our tongues or fingertips is significant enough to change the earth, to be released into the universe to permeate eternity.

To influence seven-and-a-half billion souls.

Why do you think that is—that we feel such a need to contribute to the greater cacophonous, often miasmic, whole? To chime in even when it seems futile to do so?

To believe we can?

I think it’s because we were wired that way. We were designed to interact with one another, to encourage one another.

To tell our stories.

Each one is significant. Each one matters, the noisy and the small.

Each one really does have the ability to effect eternity.

We were meant to use our voices.

For good. For the benefit of all. Oh, if only we could keep this in mind in all facets of media!

We were meant to build one another up through what we say. We needn't fret about how to do that. We just need to open our mouths and speak. It's our destiny.

We don’t need to get loud to do it.

We may get excited and enthusiastic, joyful and convicted and zealous, but we don’t need to yell over one another to make our points.

Neither should we stay silent. We shouldn't think what we have to say is any less important than what someone else has to say, even when it seems we might have to raise our own voice to be heard. Or when it seems we are inadequate--when we opt to stay out of participation for fear we'd be drowned out. When we are tempted to think that what comes out of our mouths is insignificant.

We will all give an account for every word we have spoken, the intentional and the idle (Matthew 12:36). Words that touch the lives of our fellow humans and those that pass right on by every living thing to float out into infinity are all counted. Each and every one.

Not a one is missed by the Creator who first spoke. God didn't yell everything into existence (can you imagine?) He didn’t raise his voice to make the world happen. He simply spoke. His words did the work.