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Listening To Hear the Voice of God
By Jan Wood

By the time I was eleven years old, I was clear that the heart of our faith was that I was to totally commit to following God-all the time, no matter what the consequences.

 It was also clear to me that that kind of commitment to follow God meant that I needed to hear God to have something to follow. My community of faith was very helpful in pointing the way and making opportunities for commitment. But they left me totally clueless about how to hear God's ongoing "voice."

 I listened intently to try to find out how to hear God. I finally concluded that God was talking out loud to everyone but me. So I vividly remember the night I decided that I simply was not going to sleep until God talked to me. Bedtime came and I stationed myself on my knees-since everyone knew that you could only hear God on your knees. I told God that I wasn't going to bed until he talked to me.

 Well, the dark silence of the room became a deafening, pounding in my ears. The time was interminable. And nothing. Simply nothing happened. I remember the mounting terror that rose within me. I finally couldn't bear the empty, nightfilled darkness; and I went running to my mother sobbing, "God won't talk to me. God won't talk to me." This experience did not end well, but it was the beginning of my relentless search to hear God.

A lifetime of trial and error learning has followed. I remain convinced that nothing in life is more important than hearing and following God. I am also convinced that God is well pleased by any attempts we make in tuning our beings to God's heart. It is perfectly okay to try and fail. Toddling must precede walking-so why are we so hard on ourselves and others when we toddle and tumble?

 Learning to hear the nonverbal song of God's heart is difficult business. We need to be very tender with ourselves and others as we find our way in these matters. Well, in any case, here are a few things I wish folks had told me.

1.  I wish folks had talked a lot more about how God "sounds" to them. God doesn't usually "speak" with an out loud voice. It is possible, and I would love to hear God in audible words. But I never have. For me, God's communication is stereophonic. I am surrounded by God-speakers all the time. Nature. Scripture. People. Impressions and thoughts. Writings. Circumstances. God's voice seems to be harmonic. God's voice sometimes merges to a unison but more often it blends into delicious harmony. I even find that what may to my ears seem like slashing dissonance takes its place in the melody of God's loving and mysterious communication with us.

 2. I wish folks had told me what I was listening for. I am not listening for the barks of a drill sergeant. I am listening for the heart and wishes of a lover. Obedience is not following commands, but rather aligning my choices with God's heart. Thus God may well give me specific leadings and insights, but the purpose of the communication is to develop the friendship and inform my choosings.

 3. I wish folks had encouraged me to trust my inner self. There is an amazing-and hard to describe-paradox in hearing God. On one hand, we would probably all agree that God's communication with us, God's "voice," is distinctly apart from our thoughts and wisdom. It has a quality of being "other" than ourselves. We are struck by an idea that we have never thought before. We are nudged to go home by a route that has not been our pattern and find ourselves at the right place at the right time. We see the Divine Hand in the arrangement of circumstances. We pick up the phone and place that call for "no reason at all." We find ourselves thinking or speaking Scripture that we don't remember reading. At the same time, we can't trust these leadings and nudges unless we trust ourselves. So for better or for worse, I wish someone had told me to trust what came to my mind and heart. Not everything that rises within is God's leading; but if we start with the leap of faith to trust the inner dynamics, we can start the process of sharing and testing the leadings.

 4. I wish folks had told me that we don't have to figure this out alone. The community of faith is the group that helps me with my hearing. These are the people with whom I can share my inner material and see how it settles with them, with the biblical record, with God's Holy Spirit. These are the folks to whom I can say "I think God is saying..." and they will understand the process and the search. These are the folks that can help me sort out where the woundedness of my psyche and God's voice get tangled in ways that are not helpful. This is what we are "church" for. This is the purpose of our being a meeting. We are here to help each other hear and follow-and to hear and follow corporately together. No one told me it could be this exciting and fun.

 5. The worst advice I got from fellow searchers was that it was God speaking when my stomach rolled or when fear gripped my mind and heart. I have found that to be a very poor guide. The signal of God's communication is joy and settledness, not fear and agitation. God is love. Perfect love casts out fear. My experience is that I am not clear until I have come to a place of deep internal "yesness." A leading borne out of fear may have the correct content, but it is not of the right spirit until it rises with the joy borne of love and trust. For me, fear is a sign I am still not aligned with God's heart in this matter. 6 I wish someone had told me that God rarely gives one person the entire truth, the entire perspective. We are all recipients of pieces and part of God's communications. We each hold precious parts of the jigsaw puzzle. We don't need to be afraid to offer up our hearings in their partialness. It isn't a weakness in ourselves or our relationship with God when we only have a piece of the puzzle. It is the wonderful design for the interconnectedness and interdependence of God's people.

Jan Wood, a recorded minister in Wilmington Yearly Meeting, has served in several pastorates and on the faculty of Wilmington College. She recently moved to Seattle, Washington, to direct a new ministry to help Christians transform the workplace, called "Good News Ministries and Consulting Services."

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