In my last post I spoke about the need to practice silence if one wanted to become more intimately acquainted with God’s voice. Today I want to suggest a second way one might become more intimately aquatinted with God’s voice. If you are to familiarize yourself with God’s voice you will need to Practice Listening. In the practice of listening we are listening for God’s words to comfort, convict and guide us. So it helps to familiarize oneself with what God has very objectively spoken in the scriptures. The Scriptures provide a reference point, a baseline so to speak, for all else that we hear. It enables us to distinguish His voice from all the other voices around us and, inside us. The Scriptures not only communicate what God has spoken through the inspired writers, but also how God has spoken in various contexts, through various personalities. They, in a sense, help us with the vocabulary and grammar of God so we can recognize His voice, its sound, patterns of speech, and inflection. It reveals to us the themes of God’s will so that we can navigate and flourish in God’s ways. This sort of listening takes time and focus. It, like the practice of silence, involves disciplined attention to someone other, and greater, than us.

When our daughter, Katie, studied abroad in Italy my wife and I went and visited her. My assumption was that she was so familiar with the language, after three months of intensive immersion in the culture, that getting around would be a breeze. At one point we took a bus out to a small remote city that she enjoyed and when we were getting off the bus, she decided to ask for a few directions. I watched my daughter carry on a ten minute conversation with the bus driver, nodding her head and saying “si, si”. I was so proud of her and feeling very justified in my financial investment in her education. When she got off the bus I said, “So what did he say?” and she replied “I have no idea.” we discovered quickly that it takes a lifetime of listening to understand and be familiar with a foreign language, and even more so the language of God. So take time to practice listening to God’s Word, so you can experience His voice in its varied expressions.