When God goes quiet.

I don't want to color my hair.

My dad is gray or white or whatever word you use to describe your hair color when it lacks color. He's not a little gray, he's super gray. In fact, a few weeks ago at Lowe's, someone turned to him and said, "Anderson Cooper!" That's just how the Acuffs get down.

And lately I've run into a few friends who haven't seen me in a while and they've all said the same two things:

You are really handsome.
Whoa gray hair.

I can't help the first one, it's both a gift and a responsibility, but the second one is in my court. I could go the "Just for Men" route. I could return to "Chestnut Brown" or "Rich Mahogany." I don't know if those are real shades but they should be. But I'm cool with it. Gray hair on a guy looks wise.

And I'm 35 now. It's not like I'm 8 with hair that's going grey because I'm that kid from the movie Powder and have the ability to heal deer. I'm in the middle of my quarter life moment. (I'm aiming for 140 years.) One thing I've learned as I've gained more gray hair and a few more years and a considerable amount of v-neck t-shirts is that God loves to whisper.

I used to only hear him in the lightning bolt moments. I wanted the emotional high of a church retreat. I wanted a big neon God that thundered across the sky with his might to let me know he was there. And if I didn't have that kind of moment all the time, if I had a big moment on a mission trip and then came back to quiet moments in the real world, I felt like maybe God had disappeared.

That's not to say that he doesn't blow up life in big and loud ways. But in my heart, unless that was how he was rolling, I didn't think he was around.

Lately though, he keeps whispering. In weird, unexpected, creative ways. And for the first time in my life I feel like the whispers are getting through.

My life is pretty loud right now. I bet yours is too. You've got an iPhone that won't stop humming. A college term paper or a project at work that needs your attention. Family obligations. Soccer practice for your kids. Gymnastics for your daughter. A blog to update. A Twitter feed. A job with a boss who throws things on your desk like those bosses from movies in the 1980s and actually says, "I need this by 8AM tomorrow Johnson!" Even if your name isn't Johnson. You've got to run errands and pick up prescriptions and return phone calls to friends and close out the summer at the neighborhood pool before it shuts down for another 6 months.

You're busy. And I'm busy and often that means we're loud. So what do you do when you need to get someone's attention in a loud environment? You get louder. You raise your voice over the room and "out loud" everyone until you get the attention of whomever you're talking to. But not God.

Sometimes when life is loudest, he gets really quiet.

And we think he's gone. That's he's left our side. He's moved on. He's far away. But often, he's just whispering. He's saying loud things quietly. He's whispering above the fray.

That's what he did to Elijah. First there was a powerful wind. And God wasn't in it. Then an earthquake. And God wasn't in it. Then a fire. And God wasn't in it. At last we're told in 1 Kings 19:12, "there came a gentle whisper." And that's where God was. He brought thunder and lightning and power and might and then pulled the rug from under his prophet and said, "I'm the whisper."

That's what it felt like he did to me the other night too.

It was date night at Acuff house. I usually take my daughters out individually but with my wife gone for the night, I took them both out to dinner. The place we wanted to go was closed and we ended up in an Irish Pub in downtown Franklin, TN. It's not really a pub, but that last sentence felt more dramatic saying it that way. It's more of a small Irish restaurant/pub. See, the slash nearly killed the drama I was carefully building.

The conversation that night with my 5-year-old McRae and my 7 year old L.E. was incredible and I'll be writing about it more down the road. But in the middle of the meal, L.E. said something really unexpected. Here's what she said:

Christ be with me,

Christ within me,

Christ behind me,

Christ before me,

Christ beside me,

Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me.

At first I thought, "I've done an awesome job raising holy kids." But then I realized around the small restaurant, where crown molding would have gone, was written a prayer by St. Patrick. I asked L.E. if she knew what it meant and she looked at me without missing a beat and said, "Christ is everywhere."

The night moved on and I didn't think about that moment until I was on a plane the next day headed to Daytona Beach to speak at BigStuf Camps. Life is loud right now, in some really great ways. The Quitter Conference is this Saturday and that has been one of the hardest things I've ever written. I get to go to Dallas and speak at the Echo Conference on Wednesday. I'm getting to do some fun things that are so far beyond my ability that it's comical. But sitting on that plane, I felt like God reminded me of what it's like for a seven year old to whisper a prayer we all need to hear. To say a prayer over our family, over every one sitting at that restaurant, maybe everyone in Franklin. To be reminded in a small, wisp of a moment of time, that he's everywhere.

He's got this.

He's not gone.

He's whispering.

And he loves me and you enough to remind us of that over and over again, if we'll only listen.

Question:

Does God feel loud in your life, or quiet?