"Hearing God" (I)

I read Dallas Willard's Hearing God while in high school, and the book transformed my approach to Christianity. Digging through the crawlspace at Mom & Dad's house to pack up cherished books for storage in Wisconsin, I came across this gem and reread it in the span of two days (a big plus to being an underliner and highlighter is that you can pinpoint points-of-interest rather quickly). This book is good that I'm devoting a series of posts to unpacking some of his major points. The "chunks" will be as follows:

(A) Susceptibility to Hearing God's Voice

(B) The Nature of God's Voice

(C) Discerning God's Voice

(D) The Practice of Listening for God's Voice

Susceptibility to Hearing God's Voice

When we think about God speaking to us, we need to acknowledge His purposes in speaking with us. Willard writes on pages 145-146, "God does not speak only for us and our purposes, nor does he speak primarily for our own prosperity, safety or gratification. Those who receive the grace of God's saving companionship in his word are by that very fact are also fitted to show humankind how to live. They, and they alone, are at home in the universe as it actually is. In that sense they are the light of the world. Their transformed nature automatically suits them to the task, which, therefore, is not optional or an afterthought. The light that they radiate is not what they do but who they are." This is a crucial point to make, especially in an Americanized Christianity that imagines God's preoccupation when it comes to us is our health, wealth, and prosperity, the attainment of our dreams and ambitions. This is an entirely solipsistic approach to Christianity. So often we imagine that God orbits around us rather than us orbiting around God. God's preoccupation isn't our happiness in this present evil age but the advancement of His kingdom throughout the cosmos. Our role as God's renewed people is to serve as "priests and rulers" in this world, interceding between God and fallen humanity. Hannah Hurnard writes, "An intercessor is one who is in such vital contact with God and with his fellow man that he is like a living wire closing the gap between the saving power of God and the sinful men who have been cut off from that power. An intercessor is the contacting link between the source of power (the life of the Lord Jesus Christ) and the objects needing that power and life." That is our role, and ninety-nine percent of the time, God's word to us will be aimed at our flourishing in that role for God's glory and the advance of His kingdom. 

There are many barriers to hearing God's voice, not least a disposition towards God that places Him at our behest rather than the other way around. So long as we picture God as our wish-granter and problem-solver more than anything else, we effectively close ourselves off to His voice, since our eyes cannot see and our ears cannot hear. Often we claim we want to hear God's individualized word to us, but if we don't really want to hear His words, even if we think we do, we effectively render ourselves dumb. The Scriptures likewise tell us that an ungrateful heart and an unrepentant spirit hinder our prayers and thus our susceptibility to hearing and recognizing God's voice when He speaks to us.

Many people (especially Christians!) will claim that God doesn't speak to us since we have the Bible. That is God's word to us, and there's no need for anything else. Willard makes it quite clear that if our personal relationship with God is absent any sort of personal communication (even absent the possibility of personal communication), then there is no such thing as a personal relationship with Him. Willard emphasizes that God can communicate with us, He should communicate with us, and He does communicate with us. The New Testament shows us that God actively communicates with His people, giving them direction and guidance; indeed, Paul assumes in 1 Corinthians that God speaks to His people and that they in turn communicate His words to the gathered church. Willard advocates that God desires, if we will only seek Him and pay attention, to have a conversational relationship with us. He insists that there is appropriate, clear, and specific communication through conscious experience from God to the individual believer within the context of a life immersed in His kingdom.

And therein lies one of the greatest requirements for a conversational relationship with God: you must not only believe in Him as a scientist believes in gravity, but you must also belong to Him through Christ, and live the sort of life that is immersed in His kingdom. What we're talking about is regeneration. Willard observes, "Jesus said, 'No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above' (Jn 3:3). Without this birth we cannot recognize God's workings; we do not possess the appropriate faculties and equipment. We are like kittens trying to contemplate a sonnet." (149) It is only in regeneration that we can enjoy the privilege of a conversational relationship with God, and in pages 148-149, Willard explains why:

"Human beings were once alive to God. They were created to be responsive to and interactive with him. Adam and Eve lived in a conversational relationship with their Creator, daily renewed. When they mistrusted God and disobeyed him, that cut them off from the realm of the Spirit. Thus they became dead in relation to it... God had said of the forbidden fruit, 'in the day that you eat of it you shall die.' (Gen 2:17). And they did. Biologically they continued to live, of course. But they ceased to be responsive and interactive in relation to God's cosmic rule in his kingdom. It would be necessary for God to confer an additional level of life on them and their children, through 'being born from above,' (Jn 3:3) in order for them once again to be alive to God, to be able to respond toward him and to act within the realm of the Spirit. Human beings 'born of water' (Jn 3:5)--that is, through natural birth--are alive in the flesh, in the biological and psychological realm of nature. But in relation to God they remain 'dead through the trespasses and sins' (Eph 2:1). Therefore they inhabit a world 'without hope and without God' (Eph 2:12 NIV). They can, however, be born a second time, 'born from above'... This is not merely to be born again in the sense of repeating something or to make a new start from the same place. Instead it is a matter of an additional kind of birth whereby we become aware of and enter into the spiritual kingdom of God."

Human beings are separated from the communion with God we had when we were in the Garden. In Christ that communion is restored. As we grow closer to God and fit better into the clothes of sanctification, we're enabled to discern His voice in our lives. That isn't to say that God doesn't speak to those who don't belong to Him; it's just to say that (a) it isn't the norm, and (b) when He does, it's still in accordance with His kingdom purposes. As I write this, there's a huge revival happening in northern Africa. Thousands upon thousands of Muslims are having visions and dreams of the resurrected Christ, and they're converting to Christianity in droves. (If you research Muslim conversions to Christianity, you will see that visions and appearances of Christ are a driving catalyst) Many of these Muslims were illiterate all their lives, and upon conversion, they find that their eyes are opened and they're able to read and comprehend the scriptures. These aren't hallucinations, and these aren't gimmicks. This is Christ appearing to these men and women and drawing them to himself; these are miracles taking place in northern Africa where the gospel is victoriously advancing. God does indeed make himself known to unbelievers, and He does indeed communicate with those who are lost. But this isn't a "conversational" sort of communication; that is, for the most part, reserved for those who are in communion with Him. It is a wondrous benefit of our redemption.