April 2003
Page 1 - Gethseminary by Paul Anderson
Page 2 - "Let Anyone with Ears to Hear, Listen!" by Dallas Willard
Page 3 - Report from the Mid-Year Equipping Conference
Page 4 - The Process or "How do we get there from here?" by Paul Anderson
"Let Anyone with Ears to Hear, Listen!"
by Dallas WillardOur ability to recognize God's voice in our souls and to distinguish it with practical certainty from other competing voices is acquired by effort and experimentation - both on God's part and ours. It does not come automatically by divine imposition and command.
Those who really want to live under God's guidance and who by proper teaching or other special provision made by God become convinced that he will speak and perhaps is speaking to them can proceed to learn through experience the particular quality, spirit and content of God's voice. They will then distinguish and understand the voice of God; their discernment will not be infallible, but they will discern his voice as clearly and with as much accuracy as they discern the voice of any other person with whom they are on intimate terms.
I emphasize once again that this does not mean that they will always correctly understand what God says to them or even that it will be easy for them to get his message straight. One great cause of confusion is that people make infallibility a condition of hearing God. It helps, I believe and hope, to understand that God's word is communication and that communication occurs constantly in contexts where infallibility is completely out of the question.
The infallibility of the speaker - as is in the case when God is the speaker - does not and need not guarantee infallibility of the hearer. But fortunately, as we all know, speakers who are not even close to being perfect still communicate reliably and regularly. I know my children's voices well and would recognize them under a very wide range of circumstances. Generally I understand what they say. But I would know it was one of them speaking even if I could not understand what was said. (This has actually happened on numerous occasions!)
Indeed careful study of personal relationships show that recognition of a certain voice is often the cue for someone to stop listening or even to distort the message in particular ways that are relevant to the specific nature of the relationship between the people involved. I am convinced that this often happens in the divine-human conversation, and it almost always happens when God speaks to those who are in covert rebellion against him.
One of Jesus' deepest teachings concerned the manner in which we hear. This is so important that it cannot be emphasized enough. Specifically, Jesus alerted his hearers to the fact that they might not be using their ears simply for hearing but for other purposes as well - such as to filter and manage the message so it fits better their own lives and purposes. "'Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!' And he said to them, 'Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away'" (Mark 4:23-25). Listening is an active process that may select or omit from, as well as reshape, the message intended by the speaker. Both listening and our other ways of perceiving turn out to be fundamental displays of our character, our freedom and our bondages.
Those who really do not want to hear what God has to say - no matter what they may say to the contrary - will position themselves before God in such a way "that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven" (Mark 4:12). If we do not want to be converted from our chosen and habitual ways, if we really want to run our own lives without any interference from God, our very perceptual mechanisms will filter out his voice or twist it to our own purposes.
The doleful reality is that very few human beings really do desire to hear what God has to say to them. This is shown by how rarely we listen for his voice when we are not in trouble or when we are not being faced with a decision that we do not know how to handle. People who understand and warmly desire to hear God's voice will, by contrast, want to hear it when life is uneventful just as much as they want to hear it when they are facing trouble or big decisions. This is a test that we should all apply to ourselves as we go in search of God's word: do we seek it only under uncomfortable circumstances? Our answer may reveal that our failure to hear his voice when we want to is due to the fact that we do not in general want to hear it, that we want it only when we think we need it.
Usually those who want a word from God when they are in trouble cannot find it. Or at least they have no assurance that they have found it. This is, I think, because they do not first and foremost simply want to hear God speaking in their lives in general. At heart they only want to get out of trouble or to make the decisions that will be best for them. I have spoken with many who think of divine communication only as something to help them avoid trouble.
That we lack the desire to receive God's word merely for what it is, just because we believe it is the best way to live, is also shown by a disregard of the plain directives in the Scriptures. Sanctification from sexual uncleanness (I Thess. 4:3) and a continuously thankful heart ( I Thess. 5.18) are among the many specific things clearly set forth in God's general instructions to all people. It is not wise to disregard these plain directives and then expect to hear a special message from God when we want it.
I do not mean to say that God absolutely will not, in his mercy, communicate and instruct those who have departed from the general guidance, the Word, he has given. Contrary to the well-meaning works of the blind man whom Jesus healed (Jn. 9:31), God does on occasion "listen to sinners, " and he speaks to them as well. But this cannot be counted on as part of a regular and intelligible plan for living in a conversational relationship with God. Anyone who rejects the general counsels of Scripture is in fact planning not to be guided by God and cannot then rely on being able to be delivered from their difficulties by obtaining God's input on particular occasions.
Many people, however, honestly desire God's word both in its own right and because God knows it is best for us. As part of their total plan for living in harmony with God, these believers adopt the general counsels of Scripture as the framework within which they are to know his daily graces. These people will most assuredly receive God's specific, conscious words through the inner voice to the extent that it truly is appropriate in helping them become more like Christ. There is a limit to which such guidance is appropriate, and we will return to this point later. But it is true in general, as G. Campbell Morgan has written, that "wherever there are hearts waiting for the Voice of God, that Voice is to be heard."
Taken from Hearing God by Dallas Willard. © 1984, 1993,1999 by Dallas Willard. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press; P.O. Box 1400; Downers Grove, IL 60515; www.ivpress.com.
Dallas Willard, Ph.D is a professor and former director of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is a best-selling author of more than thirty publications including Hearing God, The Divine Conspiracy, Renovation of the Heart and The Spirit of the Disciplines. He and his wife, Jane, live in Chatsworth, California.
