Echoes

If you have ever stood in an empty warehouse or at the entrance of a cave, you have likely shouted your name or “Hello!” and then listened as the empty space echoed back to you. One of God’s amazing, though often misunderstood, creatures that uses echoes to its advantage is the bat. Bats use echoes in sending out sound waves to navigate their surroundings and locate objects as their sound waves are reflected back. This keen navigational system is called echolocation.

Naturalist Diane Ackerman gives a rather resonant (pardon the pun!) description of this wonderous creation:

It’s not hard to understand echolocation, if you picture bats as calling or whistling to their prey with high-frequency sounds. Most of us can’t hear these. At our youngest and keenest of ear, we might detect sounds of twenty thousand vibrations a second, but bats can vocalize at up to two hundred thousand. They do it not in a steady stream but at intervals—twenty or thirty times a second. A bat listens for the sounds to return to it, and when the echoes start coming faster and louder it knows that the insect it’s stalking has flown nearer. By judging the time between echoes, a bat can tell how fast its prey is moving and in which direction. Some bats are sensitive enough to register a beetle walking on sand, and some can detect the movement of a moth flexing its wings as it sits on a leaf (The New Yorker).

The physiological process of echolocation can be used as an analogy for the system in place between God and man. The prophet Isaiah tells us that God’s word goes out from His mouth and returns, accomplishing its purpose (Isaiah 55:11). And just as bats operate using frequencies beyond the hearing range of humans, the word of God is not understood by the “natural man,” because it must be spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Just as a human being cannot echolocate, a person who does not have God’s Holy Spirit working with him or her will not understand His word, no matter how it may be sent.

Echolocation does not merely locate objects—it paints a portrait of its environment in real time. This is what happens to a person whose mind has been opened by God, as the Apostle Paul described in the book of Hebrews: “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit… and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Spiritual navigation through this present dark world is impossible without the help of God’s Spirit, even while God’s word is always being sent out. Notice how this sending is written of in Romans 10:14–15: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?”

Logically, God’s word will not reach any ear unless someone sends it out. Notice what each step of the path requires: calling requires believing, believing requires hearing, hearing requires a preacher, and preaching requires being sent. The ones who are sent are the link that connects God’s word to the ears of those He is calling. Without the “sent ones,” there is no echo; without the echo, the successful navigation through the darkness that fills this world is not possible, no matter how capable someone’s spiritual “hearing” may be.

You can learn more about God’s calling and about successfully navigating today’s darkness with the help of His Spirit by ordering or reading online Do You Believe the True Gospel? This study guide reveals the Good News being preached to all humanity, pointing to the real joy of salvation—the love, the peace of mind, and the deep sense of purpose that most have never experienced.