"Then the LORD came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10 CEB)
I have always been a bit skeptical when I’ve heard people say, “God spoke to me.” Don’t get me wrong – I’ve said the same thing myself a few times. But I’ve realized over the years that people mean different things by that statement.
I remember once, in a youth worship gathering, I had a sense that there might be something that God wanted us to hear, so I spoke out, beginning with the words, “I may be wrong, but…” After the meeting a young girl came up and challenged me. “If God is speaking, you can’t be wrong,” she said, “so you shouldn’t say you might be.” I thanked her for her encouragement, but then responded, “I don’t doubt that God’s word is correct, but, I do doubt my ability to always hear God’s message correctly. So, in an attempt to keep things open-ended, I felt the need to acknowledge this when I spoke.” I’m not sure she was happy with my response, but I knew I could not embrace the certainty she was asking of me.
On the other hand, I also struggle with those who reject the idea that God speaks to us. I have never heard an audible divine voice. I have never had an unquestionable vision, or even had an inner conviction so strong that I could not doubt that it was of divine origin. But, I do believe that God has spoken to me. I do believe that God communicates with any and all who choose to listen. And I do believe that learning to “hear” God’s voice is a key feature of being human and of being in relationship with God.
When it comes to the question of how God speaks, I am comforted and encouraged by the Bible’s metaphor of the “still, small voice” or “gentle whisper” (See 1 Kings 191:12 & Isaiah 30:21). Perhaps the reason so many of us wrestle with the idea of God speaking is that we keep expecting God’s voice to come from somewhere outside of us. But, the Scriptural picture seems to be that the voice of God is most commonly heard within us. Those unbidden nudges to remember something, or to change our course of action, or to do something we hadn’t planned – I believe they are God’s whispers within us. Those sudden thoughts that pop into our heads with no connection to where we are or what we were thinking before – I believe they are God’s whispers. Those inner challenges that call to our best selves and leave us restless until we act on them – I believe they are the still, small voice of God. All we need to do is take them seriously and listen to them.
Which is why we need worship. As children we do not come into this world with the ability to communicate fully formed. We have the capacity to listen and understand what our parents and loved ones are saying to us, but we have to learn how to use it, we have to connect with them, listen to the sounds they make and then, finally, the meaning begins to become clear. In the same way, we all have the capacity to hear God’s voice and understand it, but we need to learn how to interpret the nudgings and promptings, the inner convictions and questions. And there is no better way to learn this, that I am aware of, than to gather with a community of God-listeners and allow the prayers and music, the Scriptures and rituals of worship to teach us to recognize God’s voice.
God is speaking. God is always speaking. The question is whether we are willing to do the work to learn to hear and understand so that we, too, may say, “Speak, God. Your servant is listening.”
__________________
John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.