To Be Loved
The Voice of God: Part 4
This is the fourth article in a series. See the first post here.
I think it is best to finish where, perhaps, I should have began: with a question.
Why would someone want to hear the voice of God?
The reasons are endless, though I think most of us would desire to simply ask God questions about what we should do in order that we might prosper here on this earth. If we aren’t careful, we each will simply become little Simons wanting to hear God’s voice so that we may work functional miracles in our life.1
God forbid.
When it comes to relating to God, our heart posture is everything. For God discerns our hearts and He will deal with us accordingly.
So then, what is the heart of one who can rightly hear God?
I don’t think anyone could answer that question comprehensively in anything short of a lifetime. This is why the stories throughout the Bible are worth a lifetime of meditation. However, I think I can help us get started.
We should desire to hear God because we love Him, and we know He loves us.
If I am honest, I have not thought about “how” to hear God until very recently when I desired to help others along the way. For the last ten years or so I’ve wanted to hear the voice of God for the same reason I want to hear my wife’s voice, or my children’s.
It’s a longing. A deep desiring that pulls at the deepest part of me.
Loving and longing are inseparable.
I mean, what other reason could there really be? Any other reason that we could conjure up, if it is not a branch firmly attached to the tree of love, is meaningless.2 But when love is our motive then a whole new dimension of communion with God doesn’t just become possible, it becomes inevitable.
We, in this life, can experience God’s love through prayer. Not just know it, but experience it.3
Ronald Rolheiser, in his book Sacred Fire4, first put me on to this language and idea of feeling God’s love in prayer, though he quotes Robert Michel in the effort. In fact, the entire quote from Michel is worth reading here.
You must try to pray so that, in your prayer, you open yourself in such a way that sometime—perhaps not today, but sometime—you are able to hear God say to you: “I love you!” These words, addressed to you by God, are the most important words you will ever hear, because before you hear them, nothing is ever completely right with you, but after you hear them, something will be right in your life at a very deep level.5
Rolheiser calls this “Affective Prayer” and it’s an idea that has been wonderfully helpful for me. The way I think of this is that through the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, we are able to experience the presence of God and feel His love for us directly. To put this another way, God can step directly into our imaginations and say “I love you”.
And these moments, these encounters with a Living God, propel us forward in our discipleship to Him.
No, we do not serve or love God based on our experiences with Him, but these experiences can become water and manna poured out into our spiritual wilderness. We don’t serve God in order to have those experiences, but a loving God richly provides them in order to strengthen us for the journey of discipleship ahead. Like Elijah, desperate to die in the wilderness, but fed by an angel sent from God and told “Arise, eat; because the journey is too long for you.”6
I want to take a moment and acknowledge that not everyone’s experience with feeling God’s love will stem from “hearing” God say “I love you”. Nor is there any method we can use to say “go and do this and you will hear God speak”. God is not some ancient, pagan God who can be aroused with special words, no is He a modern one who can be summoned with the click of a button.
And yet, I would urge you to as Robert Michel said, “pray so that, in your prayer, you open yourself in such a way that sometime—perhaps not today, but sometime—you are able to hear God say to you: ‘I love you!’”7
For me, this has meant cultivating an imagination that hears God, obeying His voice when He speaks, and going through the hard work of discerning His voice from others. Generally, I do a pretty shoddy job at it, messing up most days and trusting that
The Lord’s acts of mercy indeed do not end,
For His compassions do not fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.8
But whether I do a poor job or not, I’ll keep going because, very simply I love God because He first loved me. 9
We don’t advertise, so growth is only by “word of mouth”, so spread the word.
See Acts 8.
Great time to read 1 Corinthians 13.
Do you see how many italics I’m using? It’s because this is important.
You should read this book. It’s amazing and probably better than anything I’ve written by like a lot. Honestly, no one would blame you for stopping this article here and getting his book right now.
Ronald Rolheiser, quoting Robert Michel, Sacred Fire, pg. 181
1 Kings 19: 7b NASB
Ronald Rolheiser, quoting Robert Michel, Sacred Fire, pg. 181
Lamentations 3:22-23 NASB
See 1 John 4:19