finding God in many voices

There was once a father who had five sons.

They all came from the same house.

They all carried the same name.

They had all been raised by the same voice.

Yet as they grew, each learned a different way to love him.

One son loved the truth. He studied every word his father had ever spoken, terrified of misunderstanding even a syllable.

Another loved power. He believed the father was most honored when heaven touched earth.

Another loved order. He guarded the old ways, afraid that if they were lost, so would the father.

Another loved joy. He believed the father smiled most when his children were free and glad.

None of them were wrong.

But each began to fear that the others were.

So love slowly turned into suspicion.

“You don’t honor him the way I do.”

“You don’t take him seriously enough.”

“You don’t let him move.”

“You’ve made him too small.”

The house that once echoed with laughter became a courtroom.

Each brother tried to prove he knew the father best.

They used his words as weapons.

They quoted his teachings as verdicts.

And without realizing it,

they stopped seeking the Father Himself

and began only defending the picture of Him

they had already made.

And the father watched, heart aching, as his children fought in his name.

One brother did not raise his voice.

He listened.

He sat with the brother who loved truth and learned to love Scripture more deeply.

He sat with the brother who loved power and learned to expect heaven to move.

He sat with the brother who loved order and learned to revere what had been handed down.

He sat with the brother who loved joy and learned that holiness could sing.

And as he listened, his picture of the father grew larger — 

For every time he humbled himself to hear another heart,

he discovered another facet of the same unchanging light.

The Father was not smaller for being seen from many angles —

He was more glorious.

He didn’t pretend they were all the same. 

“Since he knew their hearts were seeking the truth of God, He simply refused to believe any of them were seeking in vain.”

At night, when the house finally grew quiet, he knelt.

“Father,” he whispered,

“they are afraid.

They think if someone else sees You differently,

then maybe they have missed You.”

“But I have seen You more clearly

by listening to all of them.”

Not because they were perfect,

but because You are faithful to reveal Yourself

wherever hearts are honestly turned toward You.

“Please don’t let us forget that we are brothers.”

One evening, the father came and sat beside him.

He did not correct him.

He did not instruct him.

He simply stayed.

And the son felt something holy - not approval for being right, but joy for being faithful.

“You have been with Me,” the father said.

The son looked up.

“You did not weaken the truth.

You honored it wherever you found it.”

​​“You knew I speak through many hearts,

yet I am always the same —

the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

“You did not try to win.

You tried to love.”

“It was through grace, love and truth that My Son revealed Me most clearly to the world.”

And the brother who listened saw, in the God who is, all that his brothers had been seeking.

Then the father said something that made the room feel like sacred ground:

“My firstborn once prayed that they would be one —

not because they would all think alike,

but because they would all belong.”

“And belonging is how My Son keeps the lost.”

And the father smiled.

Not because he had been perfectly explained —

but because he had been faithfully loved.

And the son who listened had become one who was with his Father.