My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. (John 10:27 CEB)
This past Wednesday we started our next youth group discussion topic. Our question is, “How do we hear God’s voice?” This thought-provoking topic aligns with the fall all-church focus on prayer. To tackle this question I’ve enlisted the help of some experts on the subject of hearing God, specifically the late Dallas Willard. In Willard’s book Hearing God he points out what he calls the “paradox” about hearing God’s voice. This paradox is that while the Bible and Christian history give us numerous examples of how through the ages God has spoken to his followers, “we also find a pervasive and often painful uncertainty about how hearing God’s voice actually works today and what its place is in the church and in the Christian’s life.”
Willard points to John’s gospel chapter 10 verse 27 as one place in scripture which helps us address this paradox. Jesus declares that those who know him as shepherd will recognize His voice, and they will follow his leading. Following John’s lead, Willard asserts that the beginning place to being able to hear God’s voice is a “conversational relationship” with God. Willard explains, “It is within such a relationship that our Lord surely intends us to have, and to recognize readily, his voice speaking in our hearts as occasion demands.” In other words, through both scripture and experience, Willard has identified there is a direct connection with how close our relationship is to God, and our ability to hear God’s voice in our life.
Later in the book Willard poses this question, “Possibly [we] are being spoken to and do not hear.” He expands this idea challenging is us to consider; perhaps we hear a word from God, but we are not ready and willing to obey and change if God directs, an as a result we don’t hear God’s voice.
These ideas only scratch this surface of this deep subject. Yet these ideas have led me to pause and reflect. “Do I recognize God’s voice when I hear it?” “Am I prepared to obey and change my ways if God speaks to me?”
Will you pray with me? Dear God, thank you for the privilege of being your child, with whom you desire a conversational relationship. Show me how to grow my relationship with you, such that I can clearly hear you voice when you speak. Help me to humbly listen. May I be prepared to act, prepared to obey, prepared to change as your voice leads. Finally, may your voice be heard clearly above all the other voices fighting for first place in my life. In Jesus name, Amen.
Pastor Shawn
Willard, Dallas. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (p. 30, p.35, p.91). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.