Hearing God

Written by Michael D. Warden

This article is courtesy of Christian Single

The discovery of God's voice — and thus His heart and will — rarely comes to us the way we expect, or even in the way we wish it would. Too often we think we need God to tell us something — give us some bit of information to help us in making a choice — when what we really need is for God to do something within us. And that is a much deeper and more vulnerable level of communication.

The Fear of Hearing God
"All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain surrounded by smoke. When the people saw it they trembled and stood at a distance. 'You speak to us, and we will listen,' they said to Moses, 'but don't let God speak to us, or we will die.'" (Exodus 20:18-19, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

The Christian life is a great deal easier as long as we avoid letting God speak directly to us. As long as we keep His voice deflected, we have no imperative for our lives, no specific vision, no unique command. And so we are free to deal with Christ on the level of common sense. We can live sensibly, do sensible things. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Nothing extreme. And for many Christians, this is the preferred way of living.

We are often just like the Israelites. We don't want God to come close and speak to us directly, because we don't want to die to our own ways. We know inherently that once we allow God close enough to speak, we must deal with Him at the point of obedience. We can no longer remain in the realm of fuzzy Christianity — it's either follow or walk away. But as long as we rely solely on God's "representatives," a pastor, for example, then we always have a way to weasel out of the command. "Well, that's just your interpretation of God's Word. I'm not sure that would be a sensible thing for me to do just now."Imagine how different your life would be if you really turned over all control of everything to God's Spirit and committed to follow His voice in your heart.

Opening Your Heart to God
"'Sir,' the woman said, 'you don't even have a bucket and the well is deep. So where do you get this 'living water'? You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock'" (John 4:11-12, HCSB).

In the story of the woman at the well, did you ever notice that Jesus never really answers the woman's questions? That's because they are the wrong questions. Her questions are born out of human reasoning and not from faith. And God rarely answers us along the line of our human reasoning, because He knows that human reason almost always leads us to a dead end in matters of the heart.

Many times when it seems God doesn't answer us, it's because we're asking Him the wrong question. "How will you provide for this need?" "Where is the wife (or husband) I long for?" "When will I have a job with a decent salary?" All of these questions typically stem from our human reasoning, our desire to make something happen, or to be in control. They are not usually borne from faith. And God is not likely to answer them.

When God is silent to your questions, be quick to lay them aside. Don't cling to them tenaciously in your stubbornness. You may think you cannot believe until you understand this point. But, you can. If you truly needed that particular question answered, then God would have answered it long ago. Chances are God is trying to tell you something you do need to know, but you stopped listening because you're stuck thinking about the question He won't answer. If the woman at the well had clung to her question, she would have never heard the more important truth that Jesus was sharing: He had living water to offer her. In the end, where He got it hardly mattered. What mattered was that He was offering it to her. And when she finally relinquished her reasoning and opened her heart to the mystery and the miracle of what Jesus was saying, she was transformed.

Engaging the Mystery
"The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

When we do open our hearts to the voice of God, we immediately find ourselves stepping into a story that is far larger than our own … a story so large we cannot usually see its beginning or its end, or even fully comprehend our place in its unfolding. It is God's story, not ours. But we have become a part of it, and we have an integral part to play.

The discovery of God's voice is not an event but an ongoing journey. It's a journey of wonder and struggle, fear and desire. And it will always take us to a place where we must decide we no longer need to know all the answers to all our questions. All we need is to stay close to Him; listen to what He is saying to our hearts; and follow without hesitation wherever He leads. Once we make that choice, we will soon find our lives saturated with the voice of God and discover that we wouldn't want to follow Him in any less romantic way.

Adapted from Alone With God: Biblical Inspiration for the Unmarried by Michael D. Warden. Used with permission from Barbour Books, Inc.

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