Dear Friends,
During a recent spiritual direction session with a young man, he said he was having a hard time hearing the voice of God and knowing what God wanted him to do. Part of the problem arises from the reality that he does not spend any time in quiet with God. He only prays when he is in the car driving to and from work. I asked him how good a human friendship would be if the only time you spent with your friend was riding to work together. Would that be a good friend? Or would that simply be a person who commutes with you? Doesn’t friendship require time? Doesn’t friendship demand interest in the other?
What does God’s voice sound like? And how can we even know? Why does it often feel so difficult to know what God is saying (or if he’s even saying anything at all)? These are all important questions to ask in our discipleship to Jesus. In the Gospels, Jesus tells a crowd of onlookers that his sheep know his voice. This would suggest that as we grow in discipleship to him, we will also grow in being able to recognize and know his voice. But, if that is not true of us currently, where do we start?
I suggested to the young man that he find fifteen to thirty minutes a day that he could spend alone with God. He initially thought that seemed like a lot of time. What would he do for that amount of time? I suggested he start by reading Scripture. Maybe he could start with five minutes and then add five minutes every few weeks.
The Bible is a collection of books that exists as God’s self-revelation to us. This means we can learn what God’s voice sounds like by learning what God has already said. In the same way that you can learn about someone by reading their writings, study their voice and ideas by listening to their podcasts, and explore their interests by spending time with them, we can learn what God is like by meditating on the Scriptures.
In his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul writes that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.” This means that we can understand what God is like as we read about, study, and meditate on the stories of Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus reveals to us what God thinks about us and how God sounds. Through Jesus, we learn significant truths in discerning God’s voice. We come to know that God’s purpose for us is always “life to the full,” whereas the enemy only “comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” So, we can conclude, if the voice we hear leads to fear, guilt, or shame, it belongs to the enemy.
There are so many other truths about God’s voice hidden in and revealed through the life of Jesus – he is tender and compassionate towards us; he is patient and slow to anger; he does not want any to be lost and goes out of his way to find each person; and more. The lifelong task for us is to study the depths of the Scriptures for the treasures revealed there about God’s voice, and to practice again and again to hear God’s voice, to know his will, and to live our God-filled life into glory.
Peace,
Fr. Damian+