Hearing God

Highlights

  • It is very important to remember and to always keep before your mind this fact: You are an unceasing spiritual being, created for an intimate and transforming friendship with the creative Community that is the Trinity. (Location 101)

Preface

  • When our children, John and Becky, were small, they were often completely in my will as they played happily in the back garden, though I had no preference that they should do the particular things they were doing there or even that they should be in the back garden instead of playing in their rooms or having a snack in the kitchen. Generally we are in God’s will whenever we are leading the kind of life he wants for us. And that leaves a lot of room for initiative on our part, which is essential: our individual initiatives are central to his will for us. (Location 144)
  • Those who understand how individualized divine guidance, on the one hand, and individual or corporate authority, on the other, meld together in Jesus’ community of transforming love will know how to respond appropriately to misuse of religious authority. (Location 172)

1 A Paradox About Hearing God

  • My wife’s grandmother, Mrs. Lucy Latimer (“Mema” to us all), seemed deep in thought as we continued to chatter along. Finally, she said quietly, “I wonder why God never speaks to me like that.” This simple comment, which came like a bolt out of the blue from the heart of this woman of unshakable faith and complete devotion, forever changed my attitude toward glib talk about God’s speaking to us or about divine guidance. Through her words—in a way I came to understand only later—God spoke to me. I was given a vivid realization, which has never left me, of how such talk places many sincere Christians on the outside, looking in. They are not necessarily lacking the experience of hearing God, but they do not understand the language or how their experience works. This leaves them feeling confused and deficient, and may lead them to play a game that they do not really understand and that rightly makes them very uncomfortable. It undermines their confidence that they are fully acceptable to God. (Location 217)
  • “Why is it,” comedian Lily Tomlin asks, “that when we speak to God we are said to be praying but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?” (Location 289)
  • we need to understand that God’s communications come to us in many forms. (Location 447)
  • we may have the wrong motives for seeking to hear from God. (Location 454)
  • I fear that many people seek to hear God solely as a device for obtaining their own safety, comfort and sense of being righteous. (Location 472)
  • Indeed, all human troubles come from thinking of God wrongly, which then means, thinking about ourselves wrongly. (Location 486)

2 Guidelines for Hearing from God

  • In close personal relationships, conformity to another’s wishes is not desirable, be it ever so perfect, if it is mindless or purchased at the expense of freedom and the destruction of personality. This is a point that must be grasped firmly as we come to think about God’s relationship with his human creation and about what his love for us means. (Location 543)
  • prayer is an honest exchange between people who are doing things together. God and I work together, and I need to invoke his power in that activity. Joint activity is a key to understanding how conversation flows. (Location 554)

Guideline One: Love God with All Our Being

God as Taskmaster

  • He actually abused his lord by taking him to be interested only in getting his own back, while the lord for his part was really interested in sharing his life and goods with others. The point of the parable is the conversational nature of our relationship with God. The ten-talent man took initiative; he did not wait to be told what to do with it. (Location 584)
  • In the same way, we demean God immeasurably by casting him in the role of the cosmic boss, foreman or autocrat, whose chief joy in relation to humans is ordering them around, taking pleasure in seeing them jump at his command and painstakingly noting any failures. Instead, we are to be God’s friends (2 Chron 20:7; Jn 15:13-15) and fellow workers (1 Cor 3:9 NASB). (Location 594)

Guideline Two: Mere Humans Can Talk with God

  • The other problem is that we simply stop reading the Bible altogether when we do not understand the experience of biblical characters in terms of how we experience life’s events. Or else we take it in regular doses, choking it down like medicine, because someone told us that it would be good for us—though we really do not find it to be so. (Location 654)
  • The open secret of many “Bible-believing” churches is that only a very small percentage of their members study the Bible with even the degree of interest, intelligence or joy that they bring to bear upon their favorite newspaper or magazine. In my opinion, based on considerable experience, this is primarily because they do not know and are not taught how to understand the experience of biblical characters in terms of how they experience life. (Location 657)

The Strength of True Meekness

Guideline Three: Hearing God Doesn’t Make Us Righteous

  • When God speaks to us, it does not prove that we are righteous or even right. It does not even prove that we have correctly understood what he said. The infallibility of the messenger and the message does not guarantee the infallibility of our reception. Humility is always in order. (Location 792)

3 Never Alone

Called to a Relationship with God

  • Blind faith. First of all, what we may call “blind” faith is a valid, though very minimal, way of God’s being with us. (Location 938)
  • Those who understand God’s presence only in these ways must be encouraged to believe that there is much more for them to know and receive. Otherwise they will never enter into their capacities as kings and priests, never “reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Location 947)
  • Sensing God’s presence. Perhaps the next step beyond mere faith that God must be here is an imprecise but often very powerful sense, feeling or impression of God’s presence. (Location 950)
  • It is clear that one person’s conscious concentration on another frequently evokes a reciprocal awareness. Since this is known to be true among human beings, we should not be surprised that God’s attention to us should result in our reciprocal awareness of God’s presence. (Location 966)
  • The God who acts. The sense of God’s presence in Christian experience is sometimes accompanied by extraordinary events or powerful effects not easily attributable, if attributable at all, to merely natural causes. (Location 979)
  • So far we have considered three forms or aspects of God’s presence with us: (1) when he is indeed close to us, but we are not aware of him or his effects, having only blind faith or abstract reasoning to turn us toward him; (2) when he is sensed, or there is a strong impression of his presence; and (3) when he acts in conjunction with our actions to change our surroundings in ways beyond our own powers. (Location 1018)
  • Why, if God is personal, would he not also talk with us? So we must add to the above that God is also with us in a conversational relationship: he speaks with us individually as it is appropriate—which is only to be expected between persons who know one another, care about each other and are engaged in common enterprises. (Location 1028)

Two Types of Guidance

  • This reasonable, intelligible personal communication may occur in one of two ways. First, God communicates through what we recognize as a voice or as words addressed to—or even through—us. The primary manner of communication from God to humankind is the Word of God, or God’s speaking. (Location 1052)
  • Communicating Through Shared Activity (Location 1075)
  • In many cases our need to wonder about or be told what God wants in a certain situation is a clear indication of how little we are engaged in his work. (Location 1105)

Friends Have Shared Understanding

Shared Work for Good

Becoming Temples of God

  • I want to emphasize that there is an important place for the first three forms or phases of being “with” God: blind faith in God’s presence, the feeling or sense that he is near, and a display of the supernatural effects of his presence. But no amount of these can take the place of intelligible communication from God through word and shared activity. (Location 1151)

Mistaken Views of How God Speaks to Us

  • A message a minute. According to the first view, God is either telling you what to do at every turn of the road or he is at least willing and available to tell you if you would only ask him. I do not believe that either the Bible or our shared experience in the Way of Christ will substantiate this picture. There is no evidence in the life of Peter or Paul, for example, that they were constantly receiving communications from God. (Location 1171)
  • It’s all in the Bible. I believe this second view, that it is all in the Bible, is seriously misguided and very harmful. It intends to honor the Bible, but it does so with a zeal that is not according to knowledge (Rom 10:2). (Location 1201)
  • The Bible gives direct instructions about many situations in our lives. (Location 1203)
  • But other questions force us to realize that many of life’s specific circumstances are not dealt with in the Bible. (Location 1205)
  • Whatever comes is God’s will. This third mistaken view of how God speaks is commonly adopted and has much to recommend it in terms of the peace of mind and freedom from struggle that it provides. But, in fact, it amounts to giving up any possibility of a conscious interchange between God and his children. (Location 1245)
  • The fact that something happens does not indicate that it is God’s will. (Location 1261)
  • With respect to many events in our future, God’s will is that we should determine what will happen. What a child does when not told what to do is the final indicator of what and who that child is. And so it is for us and our heavenly Father. (Location 1264)

4 Our Communicating Cosmos

  • Earth’s crammed with Heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Location 1295)

The Limits of Signs

Necessity of General Understanding of God

  • Some of Jesus’ deepest teachings are about hearing. He taught in parables so that those who did not really want to hear the truth could avoid it. He realized that not everyone has ears for the straightforward purpose of hearing but that some use their ears to sift out only what they want to hear, leaving the rest aside. One of his most repeated sayings was, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” But he also urged his hearers to make a great effort to hear, assuring them that what they received would be proportional to their desire and effort (Mk 4:23-24). (Location 1416)
  • Are we ready to be in business with God? If you find yourself in a position where you can honestly say, “God has never spoken to me,” then you might ask yourself, Why should God speak to me? What am I doing in life that would make speaking to me a reasonable thing for him to do? Are we in business together in life? Or am I in business just for myself, trying to “use a little God” to advance my projects? (Location 1437)
  • It may be that I have never come to the place where I can truly say, “I am living for one thing and one thing only—to be like Christ, to do his work and live among his people and serve them and him in this world. My life is to bless others in the name of God.” If we have not come to that place, then the question that normally arises as, How do we hear the word of God? is replaced for us by the prior question, What would we do if we heard the word of God? (Location 1443)
  • To manipulate, drive or manage people is not the same thing as to lead them. The sheepdog forcibly maneuvers the sheep, whereas the biblical shepherd simply calls as he calmly walks ahead of the sheep. This distinction between the sheepdog and the shepherd is profoundly significant for how leaders of Christ’s people think of their work. We must ask ourselves frequently which role we are fulfilling and constantly return ourselves, if necessary, to the practice of the shepherd. (Location 1688)
  • Our system was never intended to promote the glory of priests and pastors, but it is calculated to educate manly Christians, who will not take their faith at second-hand.17 (Location 1736)
  • Joyce Huggett passes on similar advice, which she received from her friend Jean Darnall: “If you believe God has told you to do something, ask him to confirm it to you three times: through his word, through circumstances, and through other people who may know nothing of the situation.” (Location 1766)

5 The Still, Small Voice and Its Rivals

  • What is this still, small voice? The phrase is taken from the story of Elijah quoted at the beginning of this chapter (see also the lectio divina exercise on pp. 48-50 in chapter two). The translation might just as well read “a gentle whisper of a voice” or “a gentle whispering.” Each expression places the emphasis on the unobtrusiveness of the medium through which the message came. They are all seemingly unremarkable, inconspicuous, unassuming and perhaps not immediately noticed. (Location 1821)
  • In the still, small voice of God we are given a message that bears the stamp of his personality quite clearly and in a way we will learn to recognize. But, in contrast with other cases, the medium through which the message comes is diminished almost to the vanishing point, taking the form of thoughts that are our thoughts, though these thoughts are not from us. In this way, as we shall see, the human spirit becomes the “candle of the LORD” (Prov 20:27 KJV). (Location 1825)

A Personal Appearance of Jesus?

The Primacy of the Inner Voice

  • a major point of this book is that the still, small voice—or the interior or inner voice, as it is also called—is the preferred and most valuable form of individual communication for God’s purposes. (Location 1869)
  • The Scripture teaches that the less dramatic the message, the fuller the content and the more advanced the person who is receiving the message. If you study the lives of Moses and Abraham, you will see that this is true. (Location 1877)

Reaffirming Our Participation in Biblical Experience

  • it is worth reminding ourselves to read the biblical accounts as if what is described is happening to us. We must make the conscious effort to think that such things might happen to us and to imagine what it would be like if they were to happen. (Location 1888)
  • Generally speaking, God will not compete for our attention. Occasionally a Saul gets knocked to the ground and so on, but we should expect that in most cases God will not run over us. We must be open to the possibility of God’s addressing us in whatever way he chooses, or else we may walk right past a burning (Location 1897)
  • I say in all seriousness that we may mistake the voice of God for the sound of someone’s radio turned up too loudly, for some accidental noise or—more likely still—for just another one of our own thoughts. (Location 1900)
  • The reality of God’s voice does not make seeking for it unnecessary. When I seek for something, I look for it everywhere. It’s when we seek God earnestly, prepared to go out of our way to examine anything that might be his overture toward us—including obvious things like Bible verses or our own thoughts—that he promises to be found (Jer 29:13). But we’ll be able to seek him only if we honestly believe that he might explicitly address us in ways suitable to his purposes in our lives. (Location 1902)

Biblical Stories of People Who Hear God

  • six ways God addresses people within the biblical record: • a phenomenon plus a voice • a supernatural messenger or an angel • dreams and visions • an audible voice • the human voice • the human spirit or the “still, small voice” (Location 1907)
  • a clear consciousness when receiving revelation is placed higher than ecstasy or other abnormal states of mind.” (Location 1967)
  • ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening’ ” (1 Sam 3:9-10). (Location 1981)
  • no means of communication between God and us is more commonly used in the Bible or the history of the church than the voice of a definite, individual human being. In such cases God and the person he uses speak conjointly— God’s speaking along with human beings. It may be that the one spoken to is also the one spoken through. It is frequently so with me. In this case the word is at once the word of God, God’s message, and the word of the human being who is also speaking. (Location 1988)
  • In this way we are addressed by him, spoken to by him, through our own thoughts. This is something you can and should test by experiment. Those who begin to pray that God will enlighten them as to the nature and meaning of the processes that go on in their own soul will begin to understand. They will begin to see their spirit functioning as the candle of the Lord. (Location 2140)
  • when thoughts recur, always stop prayerfully to consider whether this may be an appearance of the Lord’s “candle” or whether the thoughts may have some other significance. Although reoccurring thoughts are not always an indication that God is speaking, they are not to be lightly disregarded. (Location 2165)
  • the thoughts and feelings in the mind and spirit of one who is surrendered to God should be treated as if God were walking through one’s personality with a candle, directing one’s attention to things one after the other. (Location 2168)
  • If our gospel does not free the individual for a unique life of spiritual adventure in living with God daily, we simply have not entered fully into the good news that Jesus brought. (Location 2285)
  • God does take care of his church, and all our efforts as leaders must be directed toward fostering each person’s individual adventure with him. (Location 2287)
  • I do not say that God may not guide through a vision or dream; but if He does, it will be very seldom, and it will be because He cannot get hold of our normal processes to guide them. For God is found most clearly and beneficially in the normal rather than in the abnormal. And Jesus is the Normal, for He is the Norm. (Location 2355)
  • When the spectacular is sought, it is because of childishness in the personality. Children love the spectacular and show themselves as children by actively seeking it out, running heedlessly after it. It may sometimes be given by God—it may be necessary—because of our denseness or our hardheartedness. However, it is never to be taken as a mark of spiritual adulthood or superiority. If spectacular things do come to them, those who are more advanced in the Way of Christ never lightly discuss them or invoke them to prove that they are right or “with it” in some special way. (Location 2370)
  • God in his mercy often speaks to us in obscure ways in order to allow us the room and time we need to respond. He lets us know that we are indeed being addressed but also that we need to stretch out in growth in order to receive the message. (Location 2376)

6 The Word of God and the Rule of God

  • Most of what we think we see as the struggle of faith is really the struggle to act as if we had faith when in fact we do not. (Location 2506)
  • Prayer is more basic in the spiritual life than is speaking a word and, indeed, is the indispensable foundation for doing so. The role of speaking the word of God has become limited today because of a widespread lack of understanding of such “speaking,” coupled with the generally low quality of the life of prayer. (Location 2846)
  • The suggestion that we should possibly be healing the sick, casting out demons or raising the dead by our participation in the word and power of God may leave us baffled, angry, rebellious and guilt-ridden. (Location 2874)
  • But, for whatever reason, she had failed in the attempt, and that failure had left her feeling guilty and deeply hurt. To protect herself she had readjusted her faith—at least on the surface—to consist of believing the creeds, helping out at church and being a good person generally (as that is commonly understood in our society). My words had reopened the old wounds and disturbed her hard-won peace. I have since come to understand that she was representative of many fine people who are convinced that the biblical mode of life in God’s kingdom simply cannot be a reality for them. (Location 2878)
  • She had been driven to distraction in her frantic efforts to obtain this “deeper life” and cease being a second-class citizen among her religious friends. She too had “failed.” She had moved to a different denomination and had recoiled into a life of mere mental assent to the truth about Jesus and some degree of effort for her local church. (Location 2883)
  • In a life of participation in God’s kingdom rule, we are not to make things happen, but only to be honestly willing and eager to be made able. (Location 2889)
  • Beyond this we should always keep in mind the words of Jesus to his seventy friends on their return from their mission: “Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Lk 10:20). (Location 2896)
  • Possibly many professing Christians have little except superstition in their religious activities. They may have no understanding at all of the nature of God’s kingdom and of how he rules in the affairs of humanity through his word, especially within the family of the faithful. We must each search our own heart on this matter. We do not have to be superstitious if we seek above all the kingdom of God. (Location 2956)
  • Legalism is superstition. The legalistic tendencies found throughout our religious and cultural life also thrust us toward superstition. Legalism claims that overt action in conforming to rules for explicit behavior is what makes us right and pleasing to God and worthy of blessing. Jesus called legalism “the righteousness . . . of the scribes and Pharisees” (Mt 5:20). Legalism, superstition and magic are closely joined by their emphasis on controlling people and events. Legalists are forced toward superstitious behavior because, in the interest of controlling life through their laws, they depart from the natural connections of life. They bypass the realities of the heart and soul from which life really flows. (Location 2960)
  • Legalists are evermore forced into merely symbolic behavior, which they superstitiously suppose to have the good effects they seek. Magic or superstition, as is well known, also place absolute emphasis on doing everything “just right,” which is the essence of legalism. (Location 2968)
  • The Bible has its own special and irreplaceable role in the history of redemption. We can refer any person to it with the assurance that if he or she will approach it openly, honestly, intelligently and persistently, God will meet him or her through its pages and speak peace to his or her soul. (Location 3016)
  • we are warned in the Bible that we can even destroy ourselves by Bible study: specifically, by the study of Paul’s epistles, for “some things in them [are] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures” (2 Pet 3:16). (Location 3029)
  • I encourage people to memorize passages so that it is in their bodies and things come out of that which they have never seen before. (Location 3032)

7 Redemption Through the Word of God

  • We will truly be at ease hearing God only if we are at home with the word of God, with his speaking throughout creation and redemption. Hearing God is not a freakish event. (Location 3079)
  • When faced with starvation, crime, economic disasters and difficulties, disease, loneliness, alienation and war, the church should be the certified authority the world looks to for answers on how to live. The resources of God’s power are at the church’s disposal. (Location 3096)
  • An intercessor means one who is in such vital contact with God and with his fellow men that he is like a live wire closing the gap between the saving power of God and the sinful men who have been cut off from that power. (Location 3104)
  • They can, however, be born a second time, “born from above” (Jn 3:3). This is not merely to be born again in the sense of repeating something or to make a new start from the same place. Instead, it is a matter of an additional kind of birth, whereby we become aware of and enter into the spiritual kingdom of God. Imagine an otherwise normal kitten that suddenly begins to appreciate and compose poetry, and that image will give you an impression of the huge transition involved in this additional birth. (Location 3142)
  • What a multitude of things must first be washed from the mind, and what an obstacle they pose to our hearing God! Only the powerful and living word of God is capable of removing them. For example, we usually think that if we are mean enough to people, they will be good. We hope to control people by threatening them and punishing them. Yet this was not the way of Jesus. He let others punish him and said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth [on the cross], will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32). (Location 3221)
  • Even for many of us who already profess to follow Christ, much inward change will still be needed before we will be able to hear God correctly. When trouble comes—for example, when we have car problems or get into a dispute with someone in our family or at work—how long does it take us to get around to bringing it to God in prayer? (Location 3229)
  • When we go to meet with a person for any reason, do we go in a spirit of prayer so that we would be prepared to minister to them, or they to us, in all ways possible and necessary? When we are alone, do we constantly recognize that God is present with us? Does our mind spontaneously return to God when not intensely occupied, as the needle of the compass turns to the North Pole when removed from nearer magnetic sources? Our answers to these questions make us sadly aware of how our mind is solidly trained in false ways. (Location 3232)
  • A recent report from a mental health clinic told how the removal of coffee from the waiting rooms transformed the patients’ behavior. Before, while the coffee was available, there was constant bickering and even violence between patients as well as between the patients and the staff. After the coffee was removed and the stimulation of caffeine was withdrawn, there were only two or three unpleasant scenes per week. Like the caffeine, the poisonous thoughts, beliefs, fears, lusts and attitudes inhabiting our minds compel us to destructive behavior that we ourselves do not understand and whose source we do not recognize. (Location 3246)
  • The literal truth is that Christ through his word removes the old routines in the heart and mind—the old routines of thought, feeling, action, imagination, conceptualization, belief, inference—and in their place he puts something else: his thoughts, his attitudes, his beliefs, his ways of seeing and interpreting things, his words. He washes out our minds, and in the place of confusion and falsehood—or hatred, suspicion and fear, to speak of emotions—he brings clarity, truth, love, confidence and hopefulness. (Location 3251)
  • The substance of Paul’s teachings about salvation is drained off when we fail to take literally his words about our union and identification with Christ. Without this his writings can be handily subjected to elaborate plans of salvation or made into a “Roman road” of doctrinal assents, by which we supposedly gain God’s approval merely for believing what every demon believes to be true about Jesus and his work. (Location 3310)
  • the person who wishes to grow in grace is by far best advised to make a close and constant companion of the book—the Bible. I do not mean that it should be worshiped. Its uniquely sacred character is something that does not need to be exaggerated or even insisted on, because it is self-authenticating to any earnest and open-minded user. For just as openness to and hunger for God leads naturally to the Bible, if it is available, so the eager use of the Bible leads naturally and tangibly to the mind of God and the person of Christ. (Location 3416)
  • We will be spiritually safe in our use of the Bible if we follow a simple rule: Read with a submissive attitude. Read with a readiness to surrender all you are—all your plans, opinions, possessions, positions. Study as intelligently as possible, with all available means, but never study merely to find the truth and especially not just to prove something. Subordinate your desire to find the truth to your desire to do it, to act it out! (Location 3426)

“Praying” the Scriptures

  • There is a simple technique that every believer, no matter how trained or untrained, can follow with assurance that the very bread of life will be spread out for them on the pages of the Scriptures. It is a practice very similar to one encouraged by Madame Guyon in her little book Short and Very Easy Way of Prayer, first published in 1688 in Lyons, France. This book is still available today, republished with some modifications under the title Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. (Location 3435)
  • When we come to the Scriptures as a part of our conscious strategy to cooperate with God for the full redemption of our life, we must desire that his revealed will should be true for us. Next, we should begin with those parts of Scripture with which we have some familiarity, such as Psalm 23, the Lord’s Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13 or Romans 8. (Location 3440)
  • Your aim must be only to nourish your soul on God’s word to you. (Location 3452)
  • You may have been told that it is good to read the Bible through every year and that you can ensure this will happen by reading so many verses per day from the Old and New Testaments. If you do this you may enjoy the reputation of one who reads the Bible through each year, and you may congratulate yourself on it. But will you become more like Christ and more filled with the life of God? It is a proven fact that many who read the Bible in this way, as if they were taking medicine or exercising on a schedule, do not advance spiritually. It is better in one year to have ten good verses transferred into the substance of our lives than to have every word of the Bible flash before our eyes. Remember that “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). We read to open ourselves to the Spirit. (Location 3458)
  • Come to your chosen passage as to a place where you will have a holy meeting with God. Read a small part of the passage and dwell on it, praying for the assistance of God’s Spirit in bringing fully before your mind and into your life the realities expressed. (Location 3466)
  • Or you may read, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Ps 23:1). First, you will find information, which you may not automatically transfer to yourself. You may say, “This was true just for David, the psalmist.” But, as you dwell prayerfully on the plain information, a yearning that it might be so for you may arise. You may express this, saying, “I wish the Lord were my shepherd; that the great God would have for me the care and attention that the shepherd has for his sheep!” And as you meditate on the psalm, affirmation may arise, as it has for so many people (“It must be so! I will have it be so!”) followed then perhaps by invocation (“Lord, make it so for me”) and appropriation (the settled conviction that it is so, that it is a statement of fact about you). (Location 3477)
  • the general train of development is as follows:   1. information 2. longing for it to be so 3. affirmation that it must be so 4. invocation to God to make it so 5. appropriation by God’s grace that it is so   This last stage must not be forced or, especially, faked. The ability for it will be given as you watch for God to move in your life. (Location 3488)
  • The practice of lectio divina introduced in this book will draw you deeper into this kind of devotional use of the written Word. In order for the written Word of God to have its best effect, it should be made part of an overall plan of disciplines for the spiritual life. (Location 3499)

8 Recognizing the Voice of God

  • We may mistakenly think that if God spoke to us we would automatically know who is speaking, without having to learn, but that is simply a mistake—and one of the most harmful mistakes for those trying to hear God’s voice. (Location 3583)
  • Perhaps our inability to recognize his voice right off is a result of our fallen and distorted condition. Or perhaps it lies in the very nature of all personal relations—certainly you and I did not recognize the voice of whoever is now most dear and intimate to us the first time we heard it. Or perhaps it is because of the very gentleness with which our heavenly Father speaks to us. Whatever the reason, it seems that at first we must be told that God is speaking to us and possibly even be helped to detect his voice. Only later do we come, without assistance, confidently to distinguish and recognize his voice as his voice. That ability comes only with experience. (Location 3588)
  • Many discussions about hearing God’s voice speak of three points of reference, also called “three lights,” that we can consult in determining what God wants us to do.3 These are   • circumstances • impressions of the Spirit • passages from the Bible   When these three things point in the same direction, it is suggested, we may be sure the direction in which they point is the one God intends for us. (Location 3607)
  • The voice of the subconscious argues with you, tries to convince you; but the inner voice of God does not argue, does not try to convince you. It just speaks, and it is self-authenticating. It has the feel of the voice of God within it.8 (Location 3726)
  • The voice of God speaking in our souls also bears within itself a characteristic spirit. It is a spirit of exalted peacefulness and confidence, of joy, of sweet reasonableness and of goodwill. His voice is not the voice of a bully. It will not run over you and your will. It is, in short, the spirit of Jesus, and by that phrase I refer to the overall tone and internal dynamics of his personal life as a whole. (Location 3757)
  • The sweet, calm spirit of God’s voice carries over to the lives of those who speak with his voice: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (Jas 3:17). If we would only heed this statement, we would never lack for sure knowledge of who speaks for God and who does not. (Location 3770)
  • Study of the Scriptures makes clear that certain things are fundamental, absolute, without exception. If the Bible says something once, notice it but don’t count it as a fundamental principle. If it says it twice, think about it twice. If it is repeated many times, then dwell on it and seek to understand it. (Location 3790)
  • In summary, then, what we discern when we learn to recognize God’s voice in our heart is a certain weight or force, a certain spirit and a certain content in the thoughts that come in God’s communications to us. These three things in combination mark the voice of God. (Location 3838)
  • Our walk with the Lord does not exempt us from the possibility of error, even in our experienced discernment of what his voice is saying. (Location 3869)
  • We don’t become infallible because of what we have heard from God. We should be cautious in sharing what we have heard. Sometimes it is appropriate, but it is not a fix-all and is not meant to be. Infallibility, and especially infallibility in discerning the mind of God, simply does not fit the human condition. It should not be desired, much less expected, from our relationship with God. (Location 3871)
  • “The [written] Word is the wire along which the voice of God will certainly come to you if the heart is hushed and the attention fixed.”15 (Location 3880)
  • Knowing the voice of God and having a practical understanding of that voice in our minds and hearts is not a luxury for the people of God. It is not to be allocated only to those who enjoy special spiritual high points. (Location 3914)
  • How lonely life is! Oh, we can get by in life with a God who does not speak. Many at least think they do. But it is not much of a life, and it is certainly not the life God intends for us or the abundance of life that Jesus Christ came to make available. Without real communication from God, our view of the world is very impersonal, however glorious we may find God’s creation. (Location 3945)
  • If those leaders who try to bring others under their supposed “guidance” knew that they would be examined by compassionate but strong individuals who understand God’s true guidance, things would go much better for individuals, for our churches and for communities at large. (Location 3968)
  • When facing the mad religionist or blind legalist, we have no recourse, no place to stand, if we do not have firsthand experience of hearing God’s voice, held safely within a community of brothers and sisters in Christ who also have such knowledge of God’s personal dealings with their own souls. (Location 3987)
  • On the contrary, we can expect (given the revelation of God in Christ) that if God wants us to know something, he will be both able and willing to communicate it to us plainly, as long as we are open and prepared by our experience to hear and obey. This is exactly what takes place in the lives of such biblical characters as those we have just seen. (Location 4081)
  • When we have learned through experience to recognize the voice of God as it enters into the texture of our souls, the lives of biblical characters become real to us, and the life of God in them becomes something with which we can identify. Our faith is strengthened by this, and we are able to claim our part in the unified reign of God in his people throughout history on earth and in heaven. (Location 4093)

9 A Life More Than Guidance

  • It is an unavoidable fact, however, that what we do or do not understand, in any area of our lives, determines what we can or cannot believe and therefore governs with an iron hand our practice and action. You cannot believe a blur or a blank, and the blanks in our understanding can only be filled in by careful instruction and hard thinking. (Location 4133)
  • Misunderstandings about faith and grace lead people to think that the Christian gospel is The Lazy Person’s Guide to Getting into Heaven When You Die or perhaps The Passive Person’s Path to Paradise. But it is not. (Location 4138)
  • Faith is not opposed to knowledge; faith is opposed to sight. And grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. (Location 4140)
  • How may we come to live confidently and sensibly with God as a conversational presence in our lives? (Location 4156)
  • How much can we count on hearing God? • What does it mean when we don’t hear his voice? • What are we to do then? (Location 4158)
  • whenever he guides us in our conscious cooperation with him as friends and collaborators, he does so by speaking to us, by giving to us thoughts and perceptions that bear within themselves the marks of their divine origination. (Location 4169)
  • His speaking most commonly occurs in conjunction with study of and reflection on the Bible, the written Word of God, wherever the Bible is available. (Location 4171)
  • James Dobson has given some of the best practical advice I have heard on how someone who really wants the will of God and who has a basically correct understanding of it should proceed. Describing how he does it himself, he says, “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’ ”2 (Location 4236)
  • Be still each day for a short time, sitting before God in meditation, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the truth of Christ’s indwelling. Ask God to be pleased to make known to you what is the riches of the glory of this mystery (Colossians 1:27).3 (Location 4246)
  • When I want to hear from God, I ask him to speak to me, and then as I go through my days, I listen for that voice or the thought that comes from him to help me understand things. It is amazing how often we don’t ask for what we need. But when we do ask, we expect it and watch for it. I’m often in the midst of something else when the answer comes. (Location 4252)
  • If you are uncertain if this is from you or from God, ask for further confirmation as Gideon did (Judg 6:11-40). You might say, “Please speak to me again” or “Lord, would you make that more clear?” That is the natural way we would relate to another person. We ask for clarity. I usually put a limit of two to three days on it. (Location 4262)
  • If I am given nothing, my next step is to say, “Is there anything in me that is preventing you from speaking clearly about this matter? If there is something in my attitude, please tell me.” That answer may come in various ways. I don’t believe God messes with our minds. He is not mean, and if he has something to say to me, he will say it. (Location 4269)
  • Generally, it is much more important to cultivate the quiet, inward space of a constant listening than to always be approaching God for specific direction. (Location 4280)
  • In every congregation we need a group of people who, in front of everyone, are explicitly learning and teaching about life in dialogue with God. (Location 4287)
  • We must make a point of not thinking of him in terms of human beings (relatives, supervisors, authorities and others) who may have enjoyed tricking us by not explaining what we were supposed to do. (Location 4336)
  • There are reasons other than his displeasure why a specific word may not be forthcoming to us in a particular case. One of the major other reasons is that, in general, it is God’s will that we ourselves should have a great part in determining our path through life. (Location 4337)
  • “My will for you in this case is that you to decide on your own.” (Location 4341)
  • God does not have an ideal, detailed life-plan uniquely designed for each believer that must be discovered in order to make correct decisions. The concept of an “individual will of God” [in that sense] cannot be established by reason, experience, biblical example or biblical teaching. (Location 4410)
  • To try to locate divine communication within human existence alienated from God is to return to idolatry, where God is there for our use. To try to solve all our life’s problems by getting a word from the Lord is to hide from life and from the dignity of the role God intended us to have in creation. As John Boykin remarks, “God does not exist to solve our problems.”9 We exist to stand up with God and count for something in his world. (Location 4479)

Epilogue The Way of the Burning Heart

  • We are hindered in our progress toward becoming spiritually competent people by how easily we can explain away the movements of God toward us. They go meekly, without much protest. Of course God’s day will come, but for now he cooperates with the desires and inclinations that make up our character, as we gradually become the kind of people we will forever be. That should send a chill down our spine. (Location 4615)
  • God wants to be wanted, to be wanted enough that we are ready, predisposed, to find him present with us. And if, by contrast, we are ready and set to find ways of explaining away his gentle overtures, he will rarely respond with fire from heaven. More likely, he will simply leave us alone; and we shall have the satisfaction of thinking ourselves not to be gullible. (Location 4618)
  • The greatest divide between human beings and human cultures is between those who regard the visible world as being of primary importance and those who do not, between those who view what is visible as all that’s real or at least the touchstone of reality, and those who do not. Today we live in a culture that overwhelmingly gives primary, if not exclusive, importance to the visible. This stance is incorporated in the power structures that permeate our world and is disseminated by the education system and government.2 But neither God nor the human mind and heart are visible. (Location 4643)
  • God’s audible voice that comes from heaven also came in the presence of Jesus. But, as he himself explained on one occasion where an audible voice came from heaven, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine” (Jn 12:30). Jesus constantly presses us toward a life with our “Father who is in secret” (Mt 6:6), toward an eternal kind of life in the invisible and incorruptible realm of God. (Location 4673)