I do not write this edition in a vacuum. I am convinced of what I write not just because it is clear that the Bible speaks of God revealing his will but because I can cite countless times when he has spoken in specificity which has proven out in circumstances and life. However, that is for conversations and not this publication.
A relationship with God must presuppose “hearing” Him. For most who read these words this commentary is hopefully just a means of encouraging you to enquire more regarding His specific will. We should not be fearful of misunderstanding Him. We misunderstand each other continually. We should, instead, hone our listening habits that we may hear better.
Provocative Reflections on Divine Guidance
The question whether or not God speaks and gives us guidance is problematic for various reasons. The obvious thing to say is that to believe He does one must believe He exists.
It is quite possible, however, to believe he exists but that He does not give us direction. This is the denial of the Deist. We must hasten to add that this is not the presumption of the Theist who continually speaks of revelation (inspiration) and usually has a very refined doctrine of revelation tucked away somewhere in his mental iPod. At the same time we must acknowledge that there are some Theists who believe that God has said all He is going to say to the privileged of another age who wrote His words down. They are the Theists who are content to speak from this revelation as “cut and dry” as if it is obvious daily counsel to their now refined reasoning powers and sleep with their Bibles with the hope for a better day when all the hindrances for the common folk are finally and utterly removed.
The answer to how we learn to discern God’s leading, voice, or His will is one that keeps getting shifted to the back of the Christian consciousness. Generally, Christians seem to believe that the believer receives an enlightened conscience when they are born again. However, considering the terrible moral sins to which all people fall prey, to say nothing of the shoddy schemes which they attribute to God, we can safely say that the enlightened conscience theory does not hold up. However, that that does not necessarily have anything to do with the ability to hear but only the willingness to obey what God would speak if we would hear.
When there are moments of inspired insight man does not give credit to God for the gift. Instead, he takes the moment and praise to himself and builds a false illusion of his own enlightenment. This is the problem of disconnection from God. It is what causes us to be God players instead of God worshippers. It is what makes us to see ourselves as the source, copyright everything we say or demand a patent on our insight which had no origin in ourselves at all.
George Washington Carver comes as close to recognizing the origin of his gift as anyone of whom I know in recent times. He produced many helpful things and gave the credit to God for revealing them to him. However, he refused copyrights and patents. Instead, he gave away those things to others who profited by his work. When he died he even had a stack of unredeemed paychecks which were eventually used to grant scholarships to others.
This is not to say we cannot enjoy the fruits which we have gathered or live by them. It is to say that in all humility we must remember the source of all things is God himself and give him the honor due his name.
When we understand our place in the universe we cannot help but be worshippers and receivers and we know that as beneficiaries of God’s gifts, we must share them with others or else lose our fellowship upon which we first depended when we started.
Receiving From God
The simple answer to the matter of discerning God’s leading, hearing his voice or knowing His will involves the disciplines of the Christian faith. These are discussed at length, clearly and with very winsome rhetoric in Richard Foster’s, The Celebration of Discipline. We cannot escape the hard reality that ours is not a conversational, relational culture. That is why the word discipline sounds so harsh to our ears. It requires a discipline to retrain ourselves in what could come naturally. It requires discipline to simply listen to anyone. Here is how we train ourselves to receive from God:
1. We renew our minds with study, meditation upon and memorization of the words of the Maker until we come to an understanding of His character.
2. We spend regular time in prayer practicing the following in our prayers: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.
3. We practice obedience and abandonment to the teachings of Christ especially in those which challenge us to abandon ourselves to the generosity of love, forgiveness, mercy, serving and sharing our resources.
4. We learn to inquire of Christ, give Him our loving attention and trust Him implicitly that He will give us guidance in any number of ways and certainly by enlightened powers of reason.
5. We learn that every word of God is confirmed by other means and witnesses.
6. We remain humble in the knowledge that “we know in part and we speak for God in part.” (I Corinthians 13:12)
Having said all of this it is important to note that this approach requires a re-culturalization of our minds, hearts, and life style. That is after all, what the Christian Faith is all about. The topic needs to be addressed usually by a very intensive study of just how God led His people in the early church and before. I encourage you that if you have trouble with the whole concept of “hearing God” that you make a commitment to study the topic again and in doing so meditate upon the supplemental material attached to this commentary.
SUPPLEMENTAL READING
John 3
1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Matthew 18
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. Matthew 18
1 Corinthians 2
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
James 1
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
***
A QUOTE
“Man at his origin knows only one thing: God. It is only in the unity of His knowledge of God that he knows of other men, of things, and of himself. He knows all things only in God, and God in all things. The knowledge of good and evil shows that he is no longer at one with his origin.
In the knowledge of good and evil man does not understand himself in the reality of the destiny appointed in his origin, but rather in his own possibilities, his possibility of being good or evil. He knows himself now as something apart from God, outside God, and this means that he now knows only himself and no longer knows God at all; for he can know God only if he knows only God. The knowledge of good and evil is therefore separation from God. Only against God can man know good and evil.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, The Macmillan Company, New York, NY, 1955
