Echo Chamber.

You’ve heard the term before. It is used to describe a hollow enclosure that, based on the shape of the structure, allows sound to reverberate.  An echo chamber can be used by scientists to test sound waves or by musicians to produce certain effects.  The simple idea is that sound is not lost.  The voice once spoken comes back.  Stated in a double-negative, in an echo chamber you cannot not hear the sound.  From the moment of the echo, it is the only thing you hear.

Metaphorically the term has come to describe an environment, a business, university, institution, or a news outlet that has created its on environment where all they can hear is the sound of their own voice.  The voice of the speaker is so loud that it is the dominant voice and any other realities are ambient noises and little more than distractions to the main voice. Again, you hear nothing new, you just hear your own voice.

Echo chambers are’t limited to businesses, universities, and news outlets. Sin produces an echo-chamber like effect in our own hearts. Our prideful hearts want to drown-out the clear voice of God.  We desire to hear ourselves, not God. In short, our stubborn hearts do not want to assume the posture of sitting down to hear God speak.  But, it is only when we open-up the Word of God that the Word of God opens-up us.