Hearing God: The Paradox

Perhaps you have heard people relate stories of when God has “spoken to them”, or when they were “very clear about what God wanted them to do.”  Perhaps you’ve questioned the sincerity or sanity of their comment, or thought to yourself, “I wonder why God never speaks like that to me?”  I know I have been there and sometimes still marvel at the extent to which God seems to speak to some people.  However, I have also experienced the remarkable truth that He can and does speak, and that He speaks clearly…if we know how to listen.

Willard’s opening chapter of “Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God”, deals with an important paradox we face when considering the contemporary experience with and understanding of hearing God.  Willard contends that it is a paradox that “seriously hinders our practical faith”, and I would agree.  The paradox is this:

There is a great deal of testimony to and belief in God’s personal, guiding communication with us.  At the same time, there is a great deal of uncertainty about how we hear His voice today, and what place that voice should have in the life of the Christian and the Church. 

As a result, we believe God could speak to us and we desperately want to hear from Him, but we don’t really know how He might do so or what to expect when He does.  So, we miss His communication or give up trying.  Either way, the communication fails to occur.

We need to understand it better, starting with three important thoughts:

1. God’s communications come to us in many forms.  This is confirmed by both the Bible and the experience of others.  We should not expect Him to communicate in the same way to every person or in every circumstance or for every purpose.  We certainly have different ways of communicating…so does God!
2. We may have sincere but wrong motives for seeking to hear from God.  Willard says here that our “extreme preoccupation with knowing God’s will may reveal that we are over-concerned with ourselves rather than having a Christ-like interest in the well-being of others or in the glory of God.”  In other words, we want to hear from Him so that we have some sort of advantage or so that we will avoid some sort of pain.  It is about us, not Him or others.
3. We may misunderstand the very nature of our heavenly Father and of His intent for us.  God is not so much interested in directing every little (or even major) decision in our lives.  Rather, He is interested in developing our character into the character of Christ.  God is not so much interested in answering every detailed question we might have.  Rather, He is interested in building a relationship with us.

I think this last one is HUGE, HUGE, HUGE.  God’s goal is His glory and our transformation.  If we let Him transform us, we will know His will.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 (NLT)

Here is something to ponder until the next post in this series:

Which of the three thoughts above might be tripping you up as you seek to hear from God?

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