Or
“One fool’s opinion on hearing from God”
By D. M. Hoven
I have been thinking a great deal about the phenomena of hearing from God. I realize this is a preposterous notion, the very nature of Divine speech is to be outside the bounds of thought, otherwise it would simply be a great thought, and not Divine. But I am going to write about it anyway, as there is little I could ponder with mere words that would be as meaningful to consider.
Firstly I have noted that this is a difficult subject to discuss, in the mind or with speech, as to question the origin of a supposedly divine notion is to place oneself in the unenviable position of potentially disagreeing with God. If that notion which is termed Divine in origin in fact is, merely questioning it reveals the tongue of that old Serpent, present in the mind of the questioner. If it is not however, such questioning reveals the peddler of the dis-graced ideal as merely a man, presuming to take God’s place. Therefore it is in the interest of such peddlers that their wares never be inspected with the due scrutiny invited by their claim.
Secondly it is not easy to get God talking, Moses notably waited for 40 days on a desert mountain where God actually lived, presumably with no refreshment, or shelter, before God bothered speaking to him, and that was to a man who had himself been called by God, and to whom the very Ten Commandments were bestowed. So it is not difficult to understand my skepticism when presented with the modern person’s claim to share intercourse with the same God known in the Bible, which itself I must also accept as “The Word of God.”
This is a bit of a strange pill to swallow, not in the least because, in a literal sense, it is not the Word of God. It is the word of Moses, and David, and Solomon, and Samuel, and 3 dozen other people, whom we have all decided, or that is to say a few hundred monks in the 4th century decided, speak for God.
It becomes somewhat easier to swallow however when its impact upon history is properly considered. No other piece of human technology has come close in terms of both the time across which it has had affect, or the number of people, and diversity of those people, effected. Very languages were pulled from nothing so that people could read it. But herein comes the question, is it the book, or the contents of the book that where important? Did the truth within make it the Bible, or did it’s being the Bible make its contents truth. Both are accurate, but certainly incomplete, assessments.
As I am not a historian, theologian, or even a particularly good scholar of religious matters, I will not attempt here to question the Bible. I accept it on my own part as being the truest thing humans have, and I accept the person of the man Jesus as being God’s son, but the bit before, and the bit after that, seem to recede a bit into ancient attempts to understand the passage of time at the beginning, and a coded attempt for a prisoner to explain a secret message at the end, presumably so that it would pass through the clutches of his captors, to a broad audience who had some key for its interpretation lost under the sword of Nero.
I am not entirely this pessimistic about the corpus of Biblical literature. The truth of the Torah is not subject to questioning, any who attempt to will fail miserably to erect a better explanation of why we are here, even if their’s has a significantly greater number of numbers involved than the book of Numbers. As for Revelation, it is the kind of book that doesn’t care about the fleeting opinions of those who read it. It holds its secrets in the clutches of Solomon’s wise man, who holds his wisdom for himself, until after it is apparent in the world, and none can question his authority.
No, I am not here to attempt such a futile exercise as Biblical criticism. So with that nasty business out of the way, why am I here?
Ah yes, the phenomena of hearing from God. I grew up in a family where hearing from God was a way of life. We sat around, and waited for him to speak to someone, and when someone was brave enough to speak for God, we listened without a second thought as to the origin of that thought we now agreed was Divine. Well, most of the time. My parent’s own reasoning certainly prevented the more outrageous of childish whims cast as divine directives from leading us about. On one hand I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this technique, it certainly seemed to be a bit mislead at times, outright wrong at others, but on the other hand, it did lead us on the adventure of our lives, as the World of God did to Abraham. So it was, at least in a sense, the words of God that came to us. I have since thought that it was perhaps the process involved and less the actual words themselves that were successful in this regard, but that claim is open to criticism.
I certainly for myself hold certain moments in my past as experiences of the Divine. And yes, sometimes those moments were accompanied by words in my head, words which certainly seemed to speak things I suspect God might actually say to someone like me, but it is faith alone that bridges the gap in my conviction to having actually heard from God.
This is not surprising, without faith, it is impossible to please God. And how can we please him of whose wishes we have not heard? But should this same faith be extended to the words of others? If someone claims to me, “I have heard such and so from God” I am not going to extend the same faith, at least not without a great deal of trust in the person speaking.
Well, if God tries to get a hold of me, and I’m not listening that day, I certainly suppose he might speak to someone who is, and have them tell me. This is Biblical, but it certainly seems that when God does choose to speak this way, He at least goes to the trouble of lighting a mountain on fire, or giving me a plague, as a “new message” notification.
Whatever, I have not seen any mountains getting lit on fire, or any supernatural plagues going around, followed by robed men droning out God’s judgements upon the fortunate victims of the heavenly notification service. Or at least I have not seen such things outside of Las Vegas, and whatever happens in Vegas…
So God is at least a good deal more subtle with his words than he was in the Old Testament. I believe this is because the World became flesh, and dwelt among us. If we seek to hear from God, we must observe the man that that word inhabited, study his thoughts, his actions, and decisions. Perhaps then, when we live as he lived, we may claim to hear from God. But can we speak for Him? To this I would simply answer, are we speaking with our words, or, with our deeds?
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