By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

Annie and I went out to breakfast the other morning. Although I’m not a huge breakfast person, I’m always happy to oblige my bride.

We sat down in the diner. It had the hustle and bustle that diners typically do. People were chatting and sipping coffee. Kids were excitedly looking around and pouring an excessive amount of syrup on their pancakes. Waitresses were taking orders and balancing plates on skilled hands.

But above all of that…a ringing.

“Do you hear that?” I held up a finger to Annie, who was in the middle of a story.

She paused to listen. “What? The music?”

I tweaked my ear to the ceiling and squinted my eyes. “No, it’s like a ringing behind the music. It’s faint but high pitched. It’s driving me nuts.”

“Maybe it’s just the song. It’s almost over, I think.”

We stopped and listened to the song until it finished a few moments later. The music faded out, and the ringing ceased. 

“Ah…,” I sighed, “Peace, at last. My headache’s already starting to go away.”

Suddenly, the music kicked back on with another song. The high-pitched ringing resumed as did my headache. 

I couldn’t focus during the whole meal because the ringing was so distracting and painful. 

I felt like I was crazy. No one else seemed bothered by it, but it was causing me so much turmoil. 

I think the Holy Spirit is a lot like that ringing. 

If we are truly spending time in the presence of God and opening ourselves up to the examination of the Spirit, contentment is impossible. You will never come to a place where you feel comfortable coasting through life without change. 

The Spirit, like a ringing in your ear, sticks with you, and you can’t get your mind off him. When you open your heart to God, he will begin pushing you and convicting you. He checks you when you least expect it. The moment he transforms one part of your life, he’s shining light on another. 

You may think, “Well, that doesn’t sound too great. I’d rather go without someone bugging me all the time.”

But you miss the point. God never wants us to waver into contentment because he loves us too much. He desires never to leave us unchanged because transformation is the goal. He wants to remove the hurtful, sinful, messy parts of our lives to free us up to love him, ourselves, and others to the best of our ability. 

Too often, we are like the other people in the diner, seemingly unbothered by the ringing exuding from the speakers. That’s the thing about the Spirit. Scripture tells us that the Spirit can be quenched. We can all too easily deafen ourselves to his voice and ignore his promptings. We can turn a cold shoulder, and God will not push us. 

Instead, we have to turn our ear towards the ringing of the Spirit, allowing ourselves to be bothered by it. Allow the Spirit’s ringing to resound in your life, never allowing you to become content, but always prompting you to transformation.