Who whistles for flies?

 I whistle a lot. My father was a whistler, and I inherited it from him. I, as the song says, whistle while I work. I whistle while I’m walking down the street. I whistle as I walk around the house. I whistle while I’m driving.

Recently, I worked alongside an officer colleague who was a whistler, too. It was nice to be working and hearing someone else in the office whistling.

I’m also not scared of whistling loudly in public. As soon as I start, my wife Tracey will just say, “Stop it”, and no further clarifying instruction is required. The problem is that often it’s done subconsciously – I don’t even know I’m whistling. This leads to the, I’ll say, ‘amusing’ sequence of me whistling, Tracey saying, “Stop it”, me stopping ... and then I start whistling again.

I’ve often been in a shopping centre with my daughter, and I’ll hear the music playing on the sound system and start whistling along loudly. She inherited from her mother the charming ability to say, “Stop it”, very quickly, and she’ll do so. Thirty seconds later, I’ll start whistling again, and she’ll give me a threatening look and hold her hand up in the ‘stop’ signal and say, “Stop it!” Naturally, I stop because I love her and don’t want to upset her. So, I start singing the song.

I like the sound of whistling. It’s an old-fashioned sound and generally indicates happiness or contentment. I suspect there’s more whistling heard in workplaces late on a Friday afternoon than on a Monday morning.

In my devotions recently, I was reading through Isaiah chapter seven when I found this verse: “In that day the Lord will whistle for flies from the Nile delta in Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria” (Isaiah 7:18, NIV).

God whistling? I hadn’t come across that before. Did he do any more whistling? He certainly did: “He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily!’ (Isaiah 5:26, NIV).

Also, in Zechariah 10:8, “I will whistle for them and gather them in, I have redeemed them, they shall be as many as they were before” (ESV).

Now, there’s an argument for the ladies in my life – whistling is godly! It’s divinely inspired and exemplified by the Lord himself on multiple occasions in Scripture. When I whistle, I’m simply seeking to be more like the loving Creator who made me to whistle just like he does.

And, by the way, I’m guessing Jesus whistled too. You can’t tell me a young tradie didn’t whistle as he worked. Just as I inherited it from my father, I’m guessing Jesus inherited it from his.

So, the next time you go to tell someone off for whistling, pause and recognise – in humility – that they may be just that little bit closer to God than you are. Because when God ‘whistles for those at the ends of the earth’, I know some people who will quickly say to him, “Stop it”, and he won’t like that. Just warning you.

–      Major Mal Davies is Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division.