Guidelines for Hearing from God
In the previous chapter Willard explained how a proper understanding of God is vital to developing a conversational relationship with God. Many people have false starts precisely because they do not think properly about God, and since they do not think properly about God, they are not the kind of people who can hear when God is speaking to them.
In this chapter he will help us understand what some of the necessary guidelines are that might help one make progress on the road that leads to hearing God.
Guideline One: Love God with All Our Being
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.
Love is the necessary ingredient that makes healthy conversation and dialogue possible. This is why views of God as taskmaster, boss, commander, and many more like them, immediately set people on the wrong course. For those views of God do not require the presence of love. In many cases it just requires subservient obedience from us. In this view God is like the Stepford husbands that Willard talked about. Their wives were programmed to do what the husbands wanted. They were robots who only desire was to conform to the will of the husband. Such a relationship cannot be loving, because to love is to will the good of the other. And if we view God as a Stepford husband, we are accusing him of willing His own good, and using us to meet that end.
An even better example of how an improper view of God hinders a relationship with God comes from the parable of the talents. You’ll recall that the servant that received the smallest amount hid his talent in the ground, because he viewed his master as a “harsh man.” In other words, he saw his master as someone that was only concerned with the improvement of his own lot in life. Willard says, “such a person could not ‘enter into the joy of [his] master’ because – misconceiving as he did – he could neither enter into his lord’s mind and life nor open his own life to his lord.”
The master in that parable was interested in developing his servants, therefore he entrusted to them hefty amounts of money (even the 1 talent was 15 years wages!), and gave them the freedom to multiply it in ways that were suitable to them. In other words, he loved them and, seeing something good in them, created an opportunity for development that would allow them to enter into their own glorious future with their master. He didn’t want them to remain as unthinking, unblinking, Stepford wives… But the one slave couldn’t see it, and so he hid his talent.
The slave that hid his talent didn’t only lose out on the blessing of realizing his potential, but he missed out on realizing the goodness of his master, and sharing in his life. So off he went, thinking his master was a harsh man. And because he thought the master was harsh, the master was relegated to a position of a harsh taskmaster. Sadly, for some, this is the only way that God can interact with them, and so he will interact with them in this way. In truth, it is better to know God as harsh, than not know God at all; but he desires to break through this barrier and reveal himself in a fuller way.
When this barrier is removed one might find themselves easily singing, “How deep the Father’s love for us.” It is here that guidance from God is not a panicked search to hear from God, or a servile and fearful desire to know the will of God, but a gentle conversation between two people who are working on the same project.
Guideline Two: Mere Humans Can Talk with God
A second truth that is preliminary to any successful attempt on our part to hear God’s voice concerns the relationship of our personal experience to the contents of the Bible and, by extension, to the lives of the saints and heroes of the faith throughout the ages.
We are prone to think that the heroes in the Bible are different than we are. This isn’t unique to us; the writer of James highlights one of the mightiest Old Testament prophets – Elijah. He was mighty in word and deed; yet James says, “Elijah was a person just like us.”
Just like us? Do you think that Elijah was a person just like you? He was.
For all the deeds of power that God worked through him, there was nothing about him that was particularly special; nothing that placed him in a different category of humanity than anyone else… not even the fact that God spoke to him. No, it is emphatically true that “Elijah was a person just like us.”
This is something you must come to believe as a truth about scripture. Willard suggests, “if we are really to understand the Bible record, we must enter into our study of it on the assumption that the experiences recorded there are basically of the same type as ours would have been if we had been there.” Seeing us as being like them, allows us to observe how it was that they experienced the communication of God, and do the same.
Included in seeing the Bible characters as being like us, is a requirement for humility and meekness. Not the false humility that grovels underneath a misconstrued sense of what is real, but a true humility that sees things as they are. Those who say, “Who am I to think that God might speak to me like he spoke to (insert bible character),” are not looking at reality. The answer to that question is always, “You are one that was created in the image of the Almighty God.” Therefore, we must come to see that God’s desiring to speak to us means that we are worth it. But! God wanting to speak to us does not make us more important than anyone else. Does that make sense? If the President were to request a meeting with you, it would be because he needs something from you. This might make one feel important, and rightly so! But when God requests a meeting, it is not because he needs you at all; it is because he wants to be with you.
Instead of feeling important, this should make one feel humble and extremely grateful. These two elements will quickly place one in a position to regularly experience the presence of God.
Willard also provides a helpful guide for those who want to train to become more humble.
Never pretend you are what you are not.
Never presume a favorable position for yourself.
Never push or try to override the will of others.
Guideline Three: Hearing God Doesn’t Make Us Righteous
“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. The infallibility of the messenger and the message does not guarantee the infallibility of our reception. Humility is always in order.”
Without humility, one will quickly misunderstand what God’s speech to them means. It is instructive to read Paul’s account in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, to understand the role humility plays in interactive relationship with God. Another character is Moses. Time and time again I am struck by his ability to not use his relationship with God as a means to shut everyone else down. Rather, all those great ones who regularly interacted with God gained a proper perspective of their own lives, and used their relationship with God as a means of serving, instead of ruling.
The same experience is available for each and every one of us.
Exercise: Hearing God in Scripture
Read 1 Kings 19:2-18.
Remember that Elijah is a regular person. Take note of how he interacts with God, and God with him. Meditate on this passage. Pray over it. Contemplate it.
Do you want to interact with God like Elijah did? If so, tell the Lord your desire. Do this as many times as you like.