Hearing God: Guidelines

It is usually a good idea to establish some guidelines or ground rules before starting something new.  The second chapter of Willard’s “Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God” discusses three things to keep in mind when we seek to hear from God.  Let’s get right to it:

First, we must make it our primary goal not just to hear the voice of God but to be mature people in a loving relationship with Him.  Only in this way will we hear Him rightly. 

When this is our goal, we will realize that God’s aim is not order us about or direct our every move, but that we would understand what is needed so that no directions are necessary.  It is similar to a marriage in that we would much rather our spouse understand what we’d like them to do because they know us so well, not because we asked them to do it.  In the same way, God does not delight in having to always explain what His will is; He enjoys it when we understand and act upon it.  God wants us to know His will because we know Him.  He wants us to hear and understand Him as just one aspect of His presence with us.

Second, we have to believe that the stories in the Bible are real stories about real people, and subsequently relate our personal experience to the theirs. 

Do we believe that what happened to Moses, Peter, Samuel, Paul, Esther or David could happen to us?  Do we believe that the story could have been basically the same had we been there in their place?  Do we believe that being human will not in itself prevent us from knowing and interacting with God like they did?  In a nutshell, do we read the Bible as though it is real or as a collection of stories told to make a point?

If we don’t read the Bible in a realistic manner, we will likely do one of two things.  We will read it like a book of doctrine, expecting it to contain only abstract truth about God rather than being a place to find God Himself.  This was the problem of the religious authorities of Jesus’ day: they knew the Scriptures, but they didn’t know Him.  Again, God is not looking only to inform us of Himself, but to transform us into His likeness.  The other problem is that we may just stop reading the Bible altogether or read it in regular doses, like taking medicine that is good for us.

If we do read it in a realistic manner, two cool things can happen:  We can be transformed from within, and we can observe how God’s voice came to the people described in history.

Third, we have to understand that 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.  His infallibility does not guarantee ours.

How many of us have experienced a friend or child that did not hear us quite right?  They were close, but not perfect?  Perhaps we expressed ourselves in a very clear way, but they weren’t listening perfectly or they interpreted our words in a different way than we meant them.  We must be humble enough to realize we may not have heard God with 100% clarity or that what He told us is to be taken in combination with what He is telling others.

Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes. 1 Corinthians 8:2-3 (NLT)

Here are a couple things to ponder until the next post in this series:

Do you agree with the three guidelines Willard suggests?  Which of them is the most difficult for you to follow?

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