Hearing from God

Hearing from God is both an individual and a communal practice. Gordon Smith, in his book The Voice of Jesus, makes it clear that there is danger in relying too much on ourselves or too much on the community of faith.

“The community, then, while it is essential to our individual identity, is also a threat to that identity. We do not find ourselves in isolation from the community and we do not find ourselves if we are subsumed within the community. When it comes to discernment, we realize that we do not know the voice of Jesus and the witness of the Spirit if we are lost within the community. The collective can become so strong that that we cannot hear what God is saying to us. We must be alone. We must remain ‘other’ from the community and not be absorbed into its powerful collective identity.”[1]

Personally, I have found that I hear from God best when I spend time in solitude with God first,  and then seek the input of the community. My time of solitude will involve reading the Bible, praying, listening to God, paying attention to dreams, paying attention to nature, and being alone with God. Then, I will go back to my trusted prayer partners, that is, my community of faith, for confirmation or correction in what I think I have heard from God. This has been a tried and tested method for me that I would recommend to others; but I also recognize that God works within our personalities and may function differently with others. Take a moment to respond to this blog and tell me the ways in which God speaks to you.

Works Cited

Smith, Gordon T. The Voice of Jesus. Downers Grove: InterVaristy Press, 2003.

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[1] Gordon T. Smith, The Voice of Jesus; InterVarsity Press, 2003; p. 210.

The Still, Small Voice

I am preparing for a few days of solitude at Kingsfold Retreat Centre. How will I experience the quiet of this place? Will I hear from God? How will I know if I hear from God? Elijah, A.B. Simpson, Gordon T. Smith, and Teresa of Avila have insights. I will listen to the mighty wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the gentle whisper. I will silence other sounds and the noises in my mind, so that I might hear “the still, small voice.” I will allow Jesus to speak while paying attention to my emotions rather than cultivating “a particular emotional response.” I will ask for the fruit of justice and truth as evidence of effective prayer. I will take what You offer oh God of my life.

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. - 1 Kings 19:11-13 New Living Translation (NLT)

“Beloved, let us take His stillness, let us dwell in ‘the secret place of the Most High,’ Let us enter into God and His eternal rest, let us silence the other sounds, and then we can hear ‘the still, small voice.’” (Simpson n.d.)

“. . . we cannot truly attend to the voice of Jesus if we think that the purpose of prayer is to cultivate a particular emotional response.” (Smith 2003)

Spiritual maturity “does not consist in spiritual delights but in greater love and in the deeds done with greater justice and truth. . . . It is in the effects and deeds following afterward that one discerns the true value of prayer; there is no better crucible for testing prayer.” (Teresa n.d.)

Works Cited

Simpson, A.B. The Holy Spirit, vol. 1 of The Old Testament. Harrisburg, Penn: Christian Publications, n.d.

Smith, Gordon T. The Voice of Jesus: Discernment, Prayer and the Witness of the Spirit. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003.

Teresa. Interior Castle. Avila, n.d.

Thanksgiving

Give Thanks - He is Worthy

(also posted at the website of Bow Valley Christian Church)

Thanksgiving season is a time when we examine the gifts we have been given and remind ourselves that we are not "self-made." Douglas Wilson writes,                                                                                                 

The issue of thanksgiving is really central to the whole debate about the existence of God. On the one hand, if there is no God, there is no need to thank anyone. We are here as the result of a long chain of impersonal processes, grinding their way down to our brief moment in time. If there is a God, then every breath, every moment, every sight and sound, is a sheer unadulterated gift. And, as our mothers taught us, when someone gives you presents like this, the only appropriate response is to thank them.[1]

A God who exists and created the universe is a worthy recipient for our thanksgiving. To whom does the atheist turn to give thanks? If there is no God, there is no thanksgiving. Oh sure, you could thank your forefathers and foremothers for outrunning the predators so that they survived long enough to reproduce and ultimately brought you into this world. But that would be hollow thanks. When we give thanks, there is always someone to whom it is given and the receiver must be worthy of our thanks.

I am glad to know the God who deserves our thanks. He is the one who has given us the gifts we have in this life. It is to Him that we respond.

Rev. 4:11 'You are worthy, O Lord our God,to receive glory and honor and power.For you created everything,and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.'

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[1](Wilson and Hitchens 2009) Introduction to the book Is Christianity Good For the World: A Debate, Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Breathing

Prayer is relationship. It is much more than asking God for something every time we come into his presence. These words flying out of my keystrokes are really just the confession of a pleading soul. I can easily fill any empty space with wishes, gentle beseeching, or all out demands for God to do my will. How much better my soul is when I simply come into the presence of God without asking for anything.

Breathing1 (by Lifehouse) 

I'm finding my way back to sanity again
Though I don't really know what
I'm going to do when I get there
Take a breath and hold on tight
Spin around one more time
And gracefully fall back to the arms of Grace 

I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside heaven's door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be 

I'm looking past the shadows
Of my mind into the truth and
I'm trying to identify
The voices in my head
God, which one's you?
Let me feel one more time
What it feels like to feel
And break these calluses off of me
One more time 

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside your door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be 

I don't want a thing from you
Bet you're tired of me waiting
For the scraps to fall
Off of your table to the ground
I just want to be here now 

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside heaven's door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be 

I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside heaven's door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be

My best worship is when I take this attitude and simply seek to be in God's presence without looking for any thing from him. The scraps from the table of the God of the universe are enough to feed me forever; sitting outside heaven's door, listening to God breathing "is where I want to be."

1 Writers: Jacob Elisha Luttrell, Henry Binns, Jason Wade, Laura Abela, Justin Franks, Yoyo Olugbo, Gregg W. Sutton.

God's Voice

In a previous post I wrote about guidance from God. This present post must be understood within the context of that broader article. In the previous article I spoke of God's guidance coming through God's word, God's voice, God's reason, God's people, and God's circumstances. Today I would like to write about one part of how God guides those who seek him and submit to his will: God's voice. How do we listen for God's voice?

1 Kings 19:9-13 falls within a long section in which Elijah plays several key roles. It is hard to pull one part out from the rest. Elijah was a very complex prophet; but, read this section and ask yourself one question: "What does God's voice sound like?"

There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. . . .

Hebrew scholars note that one possible translation of the word that is here represented as "a quiet whisper" could also be "a silence." The emphasis is on God being faint, subtle, restrained. He is not in the powerful wind, he is not in the earthquake, and he is not in the fire. He is much more subtle with Elijah in this situation.

When we consider God's guidance, and in particular, God's voice, how do we hear him? What might his voice sound like to us? I stress again that we listen to his voice within the context of his word (the Bible), his reason (logic placed in our brains), his people (the community of faith), and his circumstances (the indications we have that point us in a certain direction). God's voice will likely sound different to each of us as he uses our personalities and nature through which he speaks. The key is we must carefully listen for the subtle voice and carefully separate that voice from all of the other things that might distract us from his voice.

Becoming Wise

Proverbs 9:10 says, "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment." God is truly the source of wisdom and He speaks to us through His word in the Bible; and, we also know that we can experience knowledge and wisdom as we read other books and apply God's wisdom to the circumstances of life. I particularly appreciate these words by Tim Keller:

When you listen to and read one thinker, you become a clone; two thinkers, you become confused; ten thinkers, you’ll begin developing your own voice; two or three hundred thinkers, you become wise and develop your voice. "Reform and Resurge Conference," 2006.

I pray that we might listen to the words of many and, with appropriate reverence for our God, discern the wisdom to which He calls us.

Perspective

As I was heading out to catch the train at 8:00 am on Friday morning I saw the grey skies and knew that many people would be down. We Vancouverites love to complain about the weather.

But then God hit me with the sense of how I first saw Vancouver when we used to visit from Calgary. I was always struck with how humid the air was and how good it felt in my lungs. You can see what you are breathing here (in a good sense), you can taste it, and it feels good on asthmatic lungs. I looked at how green the grass was in March. I spotted the new blossoms of the rhododendron hedge in the courtyard across from our place. I walked past crocuses and snowdrop blossoms and heard finches twittering in the trees. I thought of places still blanketted in snow or hitting low temperatures and reminded myself I was outside in a light wool jacket without a hat, or gloves, or boots. It is all about my perspective. I need to watch for God’s perspective and His presence.

See also this blog by Aaron Etheridge.

Listening to the Universe

Today I simply offer another quote from Annie Dillard:

Who shushed the stars? There are a thousand million galaxies easily seen in the Palomar reflector; collisions between and among them do, of course, occur. But these collisions are very long and silent slides. Billions of stars sift among each other untouched, too distant even to be moved, heedless as always, hushed. The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out. But God knows I have tried. At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains; the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence. Nature does utter a peep - just this one. The birds and insects, the meadows and swamps and rivers and stones and mountains and clouds: they all do it; they all don't do it. There is a vibrancy to the silence, a suppression, as if someone were gagging the world. But you wait, you give your life's length to listening, and nothing happens. The ice rolls up, the ice rolls back, and still that single note obtains. The tension, or lack of it, is intolerable. The silence is not actually suppression; instead, it is all there is.*

*Dillard, Annie. Teaching A Stone To Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: HarperCollins, 1982, p. 89, 90.

Hearing

I was rereading The Language of God by Francis Collins for a paper on which I am presently working. I came upon a place where he quotes one of my favourite authors, Annie Dillard. She reminds us that we have banished God from the world in which we live. We have found ways to show that He is not involved in our daily lives. We have plugged our ears solidly so that He will not speak to us. And now, when we think we might like to hear from Him, He is quiet. We hear of stories in other times and in other places where it seems like God might be at work and might be speaking and we wonder why we do not hear Him and see His miracles. Dillard says,

Now we are no longer primitive. Now the whole world seems not holy. . . . We as a people have moved from pantheism to pan-atheism .... It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it. We are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. Did the wind used to cry and the hills shout forth praise? Now speech has perished from among the lifeless things of the earth, and living things say very little to very few. . . . And yet it could be that wherever there is motion there is noise, as when a whale breaches and smacks the water, and wherever there is stillness there is the small, still voice,
God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song and dance, the show we drove from town ... What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are they not both saying: Hello?"
(Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk p. 87-89; as Quoted by Francis Collins in The Language of God p39.)

Oh God, how do I unplug my ears?


Collins, Francis S. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. New York: Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster Inc., 2006.

Dillard, Annie. Teaching A Stone To Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: HarperCollins, 1982.

Voices

It's 5 am and all is quiet
But I hear voices in my head
One says, "I should seek out comfort"
Another, "Give it all away"

This life is complex and confusing
Not many wise enough to know
But I will always keep on seeking
The Voice that whispers in the Wind.

It's the Voice that cleared away the darkness
It's the Voice that separated seas
It's the Voice that speaks against oppression
The Voice that whispers in the Wind

So many voices that I'm hearing
Got to listen through the buzz
One says, "Give it up and follow"
Another, "You are just a fool"

The call of comfort keeps on screaming
I listen hard to sort it out
But I will always keep on seeking
The Voice that whispers in the Wind

It's the Voice that cleared away the darkness
It's the Voice that separated seas
It's the Voice that speaks against oppression
The Voice that whispers in the Wind

It's the Voice that says I am holy
It's the Voice that calls me by name
It's the Voice that heals all my sickness
The Voice that whispers in the Wind*


*December 2010, Lyrics by Keith Shields, Music by Mike Charko.
(Listen to the song here.)

Discernment

Do not hastily ascribe things to God. Do not easily suppose dreams, voices, impressions, visions or revelations to be from God. They may be from Him. They may be from nature. They may be from the Devil. - John Wesley as quoted by J.K. Johnston in Why Christians Sin, Discovery House, 1992, p. 102.

I have a friend who is reading a book called Hearing God: Developing A Conversational Relationship With God by Dallas Willard. I really must borrow this book from him when he is done. Perhaps Willard can shed some light on how we discern the voice of God from the other voices. It is a great challenge. So many voices compete for our attention. We have access to so much information that often our heads are full of a cacophony of voices, statistics, and words. And yet, I truly want to hear from God. I want to hear the voice of truth. I want to hang on every word He says. I want to hear and then act upon those words.

I'm looking past the shadows in my mind into the truth and I'm,
Trying to identify the voices in my head.
God which one's you?
Let me feel one more time what it feels like to feel alive,
And break these calluses off of me,
One more time.

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say and,
Even if you don't want to speak tonight that's alright,
Alright with me.
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit outside your door and listen to you breathing,
Is where I want to be.
Yeah. - LifeHouse, "Breathing"