The Chirping Cricket

As young girl I often had trouble falling asleep.  I would lay in bed sometimes for hours just thinking and making stories up in my mind until I would finally drift off to sleep. One night however, things were a little different.  As I lay there trying to go to sleep, I was very distracted by a noise.  There was a cricket somewhere close whose chirping would not stop.  I tossed and turned as I tried to put the sound of the cricket out of my mind. I wasn’t sure where the cricket was but I thought surely he will quit chirping any minute now. 

It was winter time and we didn’t have carpet on our tile floors so the floor was cold and I didn’t want to get out of my warm bed so I tried plugging my ears, pulling the covers over my head and even using my pillow to muffle the sound, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t think the noise away.  In fact, it seemed that the cricket was singing louder and louder as time passed. 

 I finally pulled the covers away, jumped out of bed and followed the sound of the cricket.  It was by my window, but I couldn’t find it so I pounded on the window and the noise stopped.  Finally I would get some sleep.  I crawled back in bed and just as I got comfortable and ready to doze off, the cricket started up again.

Back out of bed and over to the window, I still failed to find the cricket but he was there, I could hear him.  I finally concluded that it must be on the outside of my window.  I had no choice.  If I was going to get any sleep I would have to extract that cricket from the window to cease his exasperating chirping.  So with a stick and flashlight I took off outside. I headed to the side of the house where my bedroom window was located.  I approached the window and directed the light to the approximate location of the intruder and began my poking.  I was determined to find and remove that cricket before returning indoors. 

While I was busy trying to eradicate this little noise machine other things were happening inside my home.  Little did I know that my noise had awoken my father.  While I was proceeding to stand in my pajamas in the cold dark of the night, with flashlight and stick in hand poking at a cricket, I hear a noise from behind me. I turn around instantly to see my father standing behind me ready to attack!  He didn’t know I was the one outside my window.  He thought it was an intruder and he had come to remove the flashlight, stick poking individual from outside of his teenage daughter’s window.  

The girl was startled by her father and the dad was relieved to find that he knew the intruder. Together they were able to relocate the cricket and both returned to bed.

Today we all encounter some kind of cricket in our lives.  We should work to recognize and remove those crickets that are chirping so loud that we are distracted from what is important.  Crickets aren’t bad, but when you are trying to sleep and they are making noise, they can take away from a quality rest. 

Just like a cricket, some good things in life can become a distraction that prevents us from doing better things and preventing us from hearing the spirit and receiving those greater blessings in life. 

James E. Faust said, “But we hear other voices. Paul said, "There are . . . so many kinds of voices in the world" (1 Corinthians 14:10) that compete with the voice of the Spirit.  The Spirit's voice is ever present, but it is calm. The adversary tries to smother this voice with a multitude of loud, persistent, persuasive, and appealing voices. Learn to ponder the things of the Spirit and to respond to its promptings; filter out the static generated by Satan. As you become attuned to the Spirit, "thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it" (Isaiah 30:21). 

Hearkening to the "voice of the living God" will give you "peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come" (see D&C 50:1; 59:23). These are the greatest of all the gifts of God (see D&C 14:7).”   (Speeches, The Voice of the Spirit, James E. Faust)

  I couldn’t sleep with the noise of the cricket and we can’t do our Father’s work if we allow the noise of the world to obstruct our actions.  We need to keep the crickets away from the windows of our lives.