The Voice of God

            Hearing the voice of God is a very personal thing.  There are two sides to communication with God: universal –God commands all men everywhere to repent, etc.;  personal –the Spirit writes God on our hearts and we become a law to ourselves, so that we do the things of God without being instructed.  Both arguments are valid.  Some of what I feel about the voice of God is personal and from my own personal experience with God.  Some of what I believe is directly taught by scripture.  I believe that my personal belief does not in any way discount or disrespect the universal nature of scripture.

            There are those who have called me a ‘prophet’, some sarcastically or hatefully as though to indicate I think I am and I’m definitely not, and some who seriously believe God has an active, current word to others through me.  Let me say right off that I do not consider myself to be a prophet.  Generally those things I share in a public venue were not spoken for others, but for my own understanding or correction and I write them down and then share them because of the impact they bring to my own soul and spirit.  I do not think I am the last word or the only voice.  I am one voice and I recognize that God is greater and more vast than all of us or any of us.

            I can count on my fingers the incidents during my 48 years as a Christian when God gave me a direct word for a specific person.  Those occasions were not because I am or was the local prophet, but because I was there.  Perhaps having someone who isn’t a prophet deliver the message, makes it easier to take and use.  Perhaps it increases an awareness that God cares enough about your situation to use an inferior voice if need be to bring you his message of love and redemption.  Perhaps the non-prophet is just more approachable.  But it is not my regular job in the kingdom of God.

            That said, I do hear the voice of God often.   I knew the difference between my daddy’s voice and my brother-in-law’s voice.  I knew the difference between my instructor’s voice and my fellow student’s voice.  I knew the difference between my superintendent’s voice and my colleague’s voice.  I know the difference between the voice of God and other voices.  That doesn’t make me anything special.  If you tell me you’ve never heard his voice, I will have no comment on that pro or con.  I will have no critical statement for you.  That is a personal thing.  But don’t tell me I have not heard the voice of God.  You do not have that right.  And with that in tow, I will give my opinion of how God speaks to man.

            As a child, I heard the voice of God often in quiet times speaking my name.  It didn’t sound like Charlton Hesston or James Earl Jones.  It didn’t echo or reverberate.  I still hear him speak my name sometimes –usually when I’m not paying attention or listening for an answer or reading my Bible in time of need.  Sometimes it is spoken in a corrective tone; sometimes it is soft and kind.  As a child I was riddled with fear and inadequacy and I felt I could not come to God.  I believe that is why he spoke my name often as he did, so that when I was almost 19 years of age, I would understand who it was that was speaking to me and through my searching I would know his voice and finally follow.

            People have asked me if it is audible –often as a precursor to an argument.  I will say that sometimes it really seems that way, though the tree seems to have fallen in the forest when no one is there to listen –except me.  But in those incidents it has not come from within, it gets my attention, and no one else is present to accredit it to.  Therefore, I believe in some cases it is audible.  Often it is not.  Often it interrupts my thoughts with a command or caution.  Sometimes it enters my spirit without going through my mind and comes out so full and finished that I know it was not the product of my thinking.  Let me interject here that in the writing of it, my own thinking often clouds the word I heard or finishes the sentence that was left incomplete.  Sometimes I honestly have to back up and take out the ‘me’ that I recognize in it.  But sometimes, God gives me his blessing to write from my mind about what he is teaching me without reproof, knowing that I only understand my own language.

            That brings up another question I have been asked. “So you think God speaks English –specifically American English.”  My answer is “Yes. And French and Spanish and Chinese and Choctaw and Portuguese and all the dialects of the earth and all of their variations.”  Let me venture into some cloudy landscape here with a concept that I am only discoving.

            After God created man and breathed into him the breath of life, man and God conversed very well.  Man was still man and God was God, but they were conversant for many centuries.  Then Nimrod began ruling the men of the earth.  He was ‘all that’ and began building a city for his name and for the name of mankind, a city that would bind them to each other, with a tower that would reach into the heavens and be visible from everywhere so that they would not be scattered, they would never get lost.  Genesis 10 and 11

            God did not approve and he reached down with a swift motion and changed their language.  Suddenly they had a barrier that had no precedent and they scattered as they were told to do after the flood.  The great tower was never finished and nations were born into misunderstanding.  God’s language did not change but he knew the individual languages he created on that day.  I don’t believe any man was left with the ability to speak the language of God.  It is my opinion.  And yet, I believe he spoke their languages.

            So when he speaks to me, he doesn’t speak in French, or Chinese or Russian.  He speaks American English and not the old English of the King James Bible.  He speaks with no foreign accent.  If he had a purpose in doing that, he would, but as yet, he does not.  The one problem that frequently arises is that of linguistics.  My belief is that the language of God is far more simple and yet more complex than any of mankind’s languages. 

            Years ago, my husband and I went to France and spent one day in Versailles.  When we first arrived at the palace it was so vast that it became apparent we could not see it all in one day.  We had to make choices.  They offered us tour guides in our various languages and also the rental of headphones that would interpret what we were seeing in our own language.  We rented one set of headphones and joined a tour group led by an English speaking man of mid-eastern decent.  It became apparent that neither of us could understand our English speaking guide and so I gave my husband the headphones and struck off on my own.

            In my first college go round, I took a good bit of Spanish and I found a Spanish speaking tour guide.  It was amazing how much the language came back to me as I listened to her speak.  She was informative and entertaining and by the time we had finished the main tour, I had gained much information about the French monarchy and history and had new insights about the art.  Did I understand every word she spoke.  Oh my, no.  It had been way too long since I had conversed in Spanish.  But I got the gist of what she was saying.  I got the idea of her talk and I learned a lot.  I even understood some of her jokes!

            When God speaks, there is no way to understand all he wishes to tell us for our words are far too inferior.  But we listen and we catch the basic meaning, the main information.  Then because he cares that we understand, his spoken word is reinforced by his creation.  Life, weather, and even the stars teach us things that our words can barely explain.  And it is cemented by his revealed written word to keep us on track.  Jesus told his disciples that he had much to teach them that they didn’t have time for nor could they understand if they had time.  But he promised them His Spirit who would lead them into all truth.

            Now I shall address my first reaction when God told me he wanted me to listen and obey him and not another:  “How can I know it is you and not my own mind?”  Beyond an answer that was customized specifically to my experience and understanding, he also told me to ask for wisdom (reinforced by scripture in Proverbs and James) and understanding (reinforced by scripture often from Psalms to Colossians) and to ask him to show me through his creation.  But when we ask for Wisdom, we are cautioned to accept his voice, his wisdom without doubt and vacillating.  How can we receive anything from him if we always submit it to human terms?  

            He has also told me that some things will be proven in the obeying.  Jesus said “My sheep know my voice and they follow.  The voice of another they will not follow.”

            I do hear the voice of my God.  I learned by hearing it again and again and not explaining it away.  I have learned by the shame of refusing to obey and the frustration of doubt when his words seemed impossible to accept.  His love for me took time to show me his faithfulness even when I was not faithful and teach me his goodness when I was not good.  Often his voice gets my attention so he can teach me through scripture or life or the words of another.  Sometimes it teaches me from the inside out.

            For me, the voice of my God is as diverse and complex as he is.  He will not be categorized or filed away or boxed in to my neat little theology.  The most amazing thing about his voice is that he continues to speak to one like me.

            In conclusion I believe he wants to be heard.  He wants to be followed.  Ask to hear and then attune your heart to listen without questioning everything you hear.  He cares enough about his children to make sure you are not led astray when you are listening.