Communication…God’s Way

           We’ve been told He’s out there. We’ve experienced His work in our lives. But sometimes when we desire a direct answer on an important matter, the phone line to heaven seems to be out of order. We quickly assume that the trouble is on God’s end. After all we picked up that Royal Telephone and asked for direction. We’re looking for His help. We’re all ears.

            But are we?  What does it really mean to listen to God? 

            I have a ten-year-old daughter, Janette, who loves to talk. She bursts through the door after to school to tell me how her day went, who she met, what they were wearing, how one person got along with another, how she feels about it, etc, etc, etc. She communicates brilliantly. The problem is not her willingness to speak but my unwillingness to listen. You see, I tend to be a poor listener. As my daughter shares about her day, I often allow my mind to take rabbit trails. They are usually somehow connected to what she is telling me but, before I can catch myself, my daughter sees that far-away gaze cloud my eyes. She knows she has lost me. To truly hear what my daughter is saying, I have to be attentive to her. I have to stop talking and stop thinking about what I’m going to say next or how I can correct or encourage her. I have to put aside my agenda, be present to her and simply listen. 

            When it comes to connecting with God, I’m just like my daughter. I like to talk to God and tell Him all about what I did, what I desire and what He should do about it. If I were honest, though, I would have to admit that it’s much harder for me to stop talking long enough to even have opportunity to hear God speak. A conversation, even by definition, is two-way; it’s the dynamic exchange between—and of—ourselves and another.

            Problems in our communication with God do not usually lie in our unwillingness to talk. That is seldom an issue. Nor does God struggle with listening. His mind doesn’t wander when we’re talking to Him. God makes an incredible promise in Jeremiah:

“When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you’re not disappointed.” GOD’s Decree.” (Jeremiah 29:12-14 MSG).

God is present, and He is listening.

             The breakdown in our communication is not due to God’s inability—or unwillingness—to speak to us but rather our misconstrued expectations of how He ought to interact with us. We long to have Him appear in a burning bush or write on the living room wall or even come and sit with us face to face like He did with His disciples. Although He could do this, He chooses to commune with us on a spiritual level. His Spirit speaks to our hearts and minds not in an audible voice but through the awakening of our hearts and minds to His movement in our lives.

            God speaks to us as we spend time with others who have a deeply personal relationship with Him. His Spirit quickens our spirit as they answer our queries of how they hear from God. We learn from authors who share their discernment and stretch our understanding. As we read His Word and meditate, God shows us what the words mean and how He wants them to impact our life.

            Trouble hearing from God is not because God has stopped speaking to us; the problem comes from our unwillingness and inability to hear what He is saying. So what is it that impedes our listening, and what do we need to do to improve it?

            Let’s take a look at one of the more famous scriptural examples of hearing God. The Old Testament book of 1^st Samuel opens with Hannah pouring out her heart in anguish to God. She is barren. God listens and performs a miracle to open her womb; Samuel is born. In an act of gratitude, Hannah gives Samuel back to God, so he can serve in the temple, mentored under the priest Eli.

            All this happens during a time in history when God seems to be in the background. A word from God is scarce. When Samuel’s name is spoken in the dead of the night, it creates confusion. No one is accustomed to hearing God speak. The priest, who should be attuned, is old, and his senses are dull. Samuel, still young and inexperienced, does not recognize this voice as that of God. 

            The confusion we read about in the third chapter of 1^st Samuel rings true with us as women living in the 21st century. Sometimes it seems like God is in the background.  We find ourselves wondering if He’s really there, if He really cares, or if He has any relevance to our lives as busy women. Sure, we’ve tried to be more regular with our quiet times, we’ve attempted to spearhead family devotions and we’ve been good Christian women by all accounts… but hearing God’s voice? We’d be hard-pressed to recount the last time we heard God speak our name. Everyday interactions with God are, at best, sporadic. 

            As in the story of Samuel, the problem is not that God has stopped speaking to us but that there are factors in our everyday lives that keep us from hearing Him. I would like to look at three of these.

The flurry of our outward activity

            We have so much activity going on around us that unless God sent a hurricane-force wind, a lightning bolt or a screeching siren, we would not stop to take notice. We fly through each day making lunches, driving the car pool, meeting with clients, putting in the required hours at our jobs, shopping for groceries, doing laundry, helping with homework, leading Bible studies, playing family secretary and being Encourager, Lover and Friend. Where do we have time in our day to be attentive to God? 

            In reality, we don’t. 

            If we try to squeeze God in somewhere, the urgent will end up squeezing Him out. If I have a distraught child whose homework was last seen on the kitchen table but has now vanished, and the school bus will be in front of our house in three minutes, and he must have that homework when he sets foot in his classroom… will I respond, “Oh, Johnny, your homework will show up. Just let me finish reading my Bible and spending this time with God. First things first, you know”?  Not! I deal with what’s urgent. I help Johnny find his homework and get him to school on time. We all live at the mercy of the “tyranny of the urgent.”[1]

            God does not squeeze in well. Rather, God desires to permeate. Here’s what Paul encourages the Romans to do: “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1 MSG). Trying to wedge a quick devotional into our morning routine as we gulp down our Raison Bran, hoping to catch our favourite radio Bible teacher on the way to work between traffic reports or muttering a fleeting prayer before we enter the twilight zone will cause our relationship to resemble a fast-food drive-thru window. It’s okay once in a while, but if it becomes our main source of nourishment, our spiritual health will quickly deteriorate.

            Rather than trying to squeeze Him in, perhaps we should make a place for God as a traveling companion in our ordinary lives. I recently went on a road trip with a relatively new friend. In the preceding months, we had had coffee numerous times together, our families had shared dinner and we’d even had fun together at an amusement park. But the hours we spent in conversation, laughter and tears as we traveled those hundreds of miles together provided the milieu for our relationship to go so much deeper. We learned things about each other that had not come to light before and that may never have surfaced if we had not been traveling companions. Doing life together builds relationship, and it is in intimate relationships that we can communicate with simple whispers and nuances.  

             I find it interesting that when we look at Scripture to see how God speaks, His communication is rarely boisterous or dramatic. Rather, He interacts with us, His people, in stillness: through His breath, His written Word or His Spirit communing with our spirit in the depth of our soul. God speaks through the Psalmist when he says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Elijah was looking for God in the wind, the earthquake and the fire—but God was not in them. God came to Elijah in a gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13).

            What can we do to allow God to infiltrate our lives despite the chaos? Shoo everyone out of the house so Mommy can have a quiet time? Not advisable. Drop all of our commitments at church so we can just focus on God? Too drastic. As God begins to show us glimpses of Himself throughout the day in new and unique ways, we can allow Him to permeate our hearts. The commotion continues around us, but our heart is at peace because we have been invited into a relationship with the Trinity. I love Paul’s final words to the Corinthians: “The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14 MSG). That’s what we have at our disposal. As we allow the Trinity to fill us with His amazing grace, His extravagant love and His intimate friendship, we will begin to exude calmness in the middle of the storm, calm that will flow out and spill into the chaos around us.

            I don’t know about you, but I am not able to manufacture enough peace, love and intimacy to calm life’s storms. On any given morning, I run out of these qualities before the kids even leave for school, if I am doing it on my own. I am completely dependent on God to fill me, and that only happens when I have an open heart. 

            So I ask the question:  How are you trying to control the flurry around you? Are you attempting to take control and just try harder? Are you tempted to escape—either physically or emotionally? Are you inclined to ignore or deny the situation and hope it either goes away or improves? Take stock of how you deal with the chaos. Will you allow His Spirit to permeate your heart so that you can hear the quiet voice of your Traveling Companion as you go through your day?

The inner din that clogs up our heart’s receptivity

            Perhaps the outer activities of life are not what hinder our communication with God. Maybe it’s turmoil within our soul that seems to roar through our senses, keeping us from being able to respond to His still, quiet voice. I have been in a retreat setting where there are no other people vying for my attention, no electronic diversions—only myself and God—and yet I have not heard His wooing, because there was an impenetrable wall around my heart. My heart was not open and receptive to communion with the Holy Spirit. The fertile ground of my heart remained barren, because I had not allowed the Holy Spirit to enter and flow through me.

            In his book, The River Within, Jeff Imbach uses the analogy of God being a river that flows through our lives. The problem is that this flow is restricted by little dams that prevent His power and transformation from reaching their full potential in our lives. I would suggest that it is these same blockages that keep us from hearing His voice. Shame and guilt cement one sin to another. The little white lie gets cemented to the abortion, which gets stuck to the gossip, to the adulterous thoughts, to the anger…. Pretty soon what was only a small hindrance becomes a full-fledged blockage. 

            God longs for us to go with Him to these dams and to allow Him to take them apart. Sometimes it’s a dramatic blowup. But usually… it’s simply stick by stick, sin by sin. As we start to deal with the things that have kept us estranged from God, the River begins to flow more freely through us. As the River flows, we hear His voice. It may still seem faint and indistinguishable but, just as Samuel heard his name, so will we hear God speak ours.

            And so I ask the question: Where are the blockages in your soul? Where has sin accumulated so that the flow of the Holy Spirit is hindered, and you find it impossible to hear His voice? In Psalm 51, David, aware of the dam of sin in his life, cries out to God, “Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (verse 2, NIV), “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me” (verses 10-12, NIV). Allow God to dismantle the blockages of the heart that keep you from hearing His voice. It usually happens one stick at a time.

The inability to recognize His voice.

            When I make a phone call to an acquaintance, I give my full name and perhaps some small amount of information to tweak their memory and help them connect my name to me. The better I am acquainted with the person on the other end, the less information I need to give them. When I call my best friend, all I have to say is, “Hi.” She immediately recognizes my voice. Oh that we knew God so well that all He would have to do is speak one word for us to know it is Him.

            In John 20, we get a glimpse of such an encounter. Mary Magdalene has come to the tomb early in the morning to mourn losing the man whose love and forgiveness have transformed her life. She encounters someone she believes is the gardener. A brief discussion follows, but then this man speaks her name: “Mary.” That’s all he has to say, and she recognizes Him, not as the gardener, but as the man who has changed her life. It is Jesus. 

            What would happen if Jesus spoke our name? Would we recognize the voice of God? Would His voice simply brush up against the wall that guards our heart? Could we be tricked into thinking that the voice we are hearing is God’s, when really it is a poor counterfeit of the Enemy?

            The phone rang one day and the woman on the other end informed me that her name was Helga (spoken with a thick Eastern European accent) and that she was calling from a certain lingerie store. She was calling to tell me that my special order had arrived and could be picked up anytime. My mind quickly flipped through any recent purchases, and then told her she must have made a mistake, because I had not ordered anything from that store. When she replied that the order was for Mrs. Norlee Flaaten, I concluded right away that my husband had ordered something special for me. I exuberantly shared this with Helga, and she giggled and said what a lucky woman I must be to have such a thoughtful husband. As Helga continued, her voice cracked. I paused. Suddenly her voice was strangely familiar. This caused a red flag to go up. Sure enough, Helga was really Linda—my friend and a master at pranks. I felt foolish for having fallen for her shenanigans, but I realized that it was the depth of friendship that I have with Linda that eventually helped me recognize the voice as hers.

            So it is in our communication with God. The depth and intimacy of our relationship will keep us vigilant and attuned to His voice. The Enemy will try to trick us.  He will impersonate Life. But knowing the authentic Giver of Life will help us detect the counterfeit.  

            And so I ask the question: Do you know your Lord well enough to be able to discern His voice from the Imposter, or from your own will? Have you learned about His character through the written account of holy Scripture? Do you have an intimate relationship with Jesus? May you be disciplined to study His Word, spending time communing with Him and cultivating a relationship where He won’t have to give descriptors when you hear Him call your name.   

            Hearing from God is not some mystical far-fetched concept. It’s not beyond our reach. I take comfort in God’s words to the Israelites when they were about to head into the Promised Land:

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask “who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” .… No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it (Deuteronomy 30:11-14 NIV).

            Hearing from God is more than just possible. It will happen. May we develop an attentive spirit so that when He speaks our name, we can respond with expectancy: “Yes, Lord?”