On April 1, 1996 I
was returning from the Detroit area to West Michigan (Muskegon) with
a van load of teenagers who had gone with me to Michigan Christian
College (Rochester College) in Rochester Hills, Michigan for the day. I
had spoken at chapel that morning, and then later that I day I spoke in one of
the Bible classes. It had been a full day and everybody was talking
excitedly about the days events and about how much fun it was to see some of
their friends and so on. I was just outside of Portland, Michigan when
suddenly the car fell silent, a miracle itself if you have ever made
a road trip with a van full of teenager’s before, but in the sudden quiet I
heard a deep male voice call my name. Startled I looked around the van to
find everyone sound asleep. I checked the radio only to find it turned
completely off. A moment later I heard the voice again, this time much louder
and clearer. I was stunned. My response was shaky at best but I inquired of the
voice as to what was wanted of me. I was then very clearly told that the
Lord wanted me to get out of debt over the next six months, and then it proceeded
to tell me how I could do it, right down to exact figures of how much to pay on
what debts, and even how much to sell my van for. As soon as I had
taken down all the information the teens all simultaneously awoke and began to
chatter in the same way that they had been speaking previously. I was
bursting on the inside to get home and share this plan with my wife. I
had no sooner arrived home than I told her the whole thing, which was met with a
little skepticism. Dawn had been working on a plan to get us out of debt for
sometime, and the quickest she could see clear of the debt was three years. How
could we possibly do it in six months? As I lay out the entire plan Dawn
was somewhat speechless, in part because I had exact dollar amounts of what we
owed. Understand that at that time I had very little interest in our
finances, and I did not know what all of our bills were, let alone any dollar
amounts. In her quizzical response she asked me what the password was for the
Quicken program; I didn’t know. She then began to re-crunch the
numbers and told me, you must have heard this from God. In the months
that followed it was a really hard thing to do. Honestly, I didn’t
really want to do everything the Lord told me to do (like see the van) and in the end, because of
my delay in doing some of those tasks, it took more like eight months to get
completely out of debt, but we did it. Had I not heard so directly from
the Lord I probably would never have involved myself so deeply in our finances,
nor would I have done anything so radical to get out of the debt, but getting
out of debt the way the Lord had instructed me was what cleared the way for us
to be able to walk away from my job, just over a year later, to begin the
ground work on a church plant.
When I explain those
events to others some have asked me if it was an audible voice? You know, I am
not sure, it seemed so but there was no one else who heard it. What I can
tell you is that if it was an audible voice that it was the only time God's voice has been audible to me. I have
heard God's voice many times before in other ways, and after that event, but not the same
way. Sometimes I hear more clearly, and other times ever so faintly, but what I
have discovered is that the degree of clarity by which I hear his voice usually
is directly proportionate to the task I must tackle. I don’t mean how hard the
task is, some tasks like watching my youngest son Matthew go through heart
surgery were more difficult, but rather the difficulty in my being able to
follow through. It was not really a hard decision to have Matthew operated on,
even though it was a painful decision, the alternative was to let him die.
However, getting me to engage in the finances, be disciplined in
my spending, and make the hard calls that I didn't want to make, and
did not absolutely have to make . . . that was hard, but with Matthew
I really had no choice, the circumstances dictated my response.
For some, what I just said
is no big stretch, but for others that sounds too incredible. Most of the
time when we talk about God speaking to people we want to know what could be so
special about that person that God would speak to them. Or even why God spoke
to them but not to us. Let me address those two things. What is so special
about the person who hears God’s voice that they get to hear God’s voice? Then
second, Why do some Christians hear God’s voice and why do other Christians
feel they do not hear his voice?
What’s So Special About
The Person Who Hears God’s Voice?
The very nature of the
question says more than the question asks. Our assumption is that God speaking
to someone automatically makes them somehow better than those around them. In
fact, one of the greatest turn off for many people is when they see someone who
is a hypocrite saying that they have heard from God on something. They
immediately think how could that be? For some of us that’s enough to
write-off the whole idea of hearing God speak to anyone. Just the other
day I heard someone ask, what was so special about the Jews that they became
God’s chosen people? The answers to those two very different questions
are really the same. God does not arbitrarily choose people. God chose
the Jews because Noah, in Genesis 6, chose God before the flood, and again
in Genesis 9 after the flood. Then one of his son, Shem, chose God
(Genesis 11) and then in Genesis 12, Shem’s Great, Great, Great, Great, Great
grandson Abram chose God. Abram was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was the
Father of Jacob, whom God renamed Israel, and he chose God also. And to each of
those men, and their families, God made promises to them based on their
decision to keep choosing God in the same way that he chose them. (Not that
they did it perfectly.) In fact, they did it quite imperfectly, as we all
do, but it is better to choose God imperfectly, then to not choose God because
we can do that perfectly. Right? Just to be clear, God did not just look
down one day and pick a favorite nation or race. In fact, the Bible is quite
clear on this topic in Romans 2.11, speaking of God’s relationship to the Jews
as his chosen people, as well as his relationship to those who are not Jews,
and it says, “For God does not show favoritism.” God chooses those
who choose him.
So then in John
8.47 it says very clearly in reference to hearing the voice of
God, He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear
is that you do not belong to God (NIV84). Now with that verse some of you
who are Christian's might feel as if you just came under a heavy judgment, but
don't judge this yet. The point is that God speaks to his people, and that
one must belong to Jesus Christ to hear God's voice.
That brings us to our
second point. Some of you may be thinking why haven’t I heard his voice?
Without much explanation you might get one of two responses. One would be to
question if you have ever really been saved (and for some people that
could be a legitimate concern). As Rick Warren is fond of saying,
"Sitting in a church house does not make you a Christian anymore than
sitting in a hen house makes you a chicken" but don’t camp out
there. Another common response is to reject the idea that God is speaking
today. In other words, to let a subjective experience (or lack of
experience) dictate what you believe. So if you think that you have never heard
God’s voice then you conclude that God does not speak today. So the pendulum
swings to two extremes? Consider these other options.
First, every Christian can
and does hear the voice of God. You may need to get still and quiet long enough
to listen but every Christian hears from God, but there isn't
any second class Christians. Also, it is not an issue of maturity, or even
some kind of second work of grace either. Every Christian church teaches Christians can
pray, meaning they can speak to God, and expect that when you talk to God
will get guidance from God. That’s why Christians pray! Christians expect that God is
going to respond. Prayer for the Christian is not just some kind of mental
gymnastics or meditation technique. The effects of Christian prayer are not just psychosomatic.
Christians pray expecting
God to respond, because God cared enough about them to that Jesus died for them,
and they assume that if God loves you enough to send his Son to die for you that God also loves you
enough to talk to you? Prayer is not just a formula, or method to
manipulate God. Prayer is intimacy and relationship with God. The
point is that many Christian’s do not hear from God simply because they have
never been taught to identify God's voice. There are other issues that can
interrupt people hearing from God, we call those problems, SIN.
Sin is a common problem in
not hearing God. Just like those who do not know God are separated from
God by sin, and therefore cannot hear his voice, sometimes Christian's wallow
in their sin and can’t hear God either (God knows the proud from afar. 1
Peter 5.5) Being prideful in our sin, or being religious, keeps us
at a distance from God. Consider the nature of God, Jesus became a man, and was
born in a stable with the stench of animals, to reach us. God who had every reason to be
prideful was/is humble. In contrast, if you look at pride, all the way
back to the garden when the serpent told Eve, 'eat this and you will be like
God' nothing deafens a believer like pride. Author, C. S.
Lewis, once said, the hardest part about pride is that it is easy to see in
others but to discover it in ourselves it must be revealed to us.
Another issue that can
make believers spiritually hard-of-hearing is how they treat others. In 1
Peter 3.7 it warns the men to treat their wives with respect so
that nothing hinders their prayers. The same can be said about how believers
treat any human being. No one is exempt, male or female, from treating others
with respect.
So what if you are a Christian, and you are not wallowing in sin, but
you still don’t think you hear God’s voice? The next few articles on my blog
are going to be about helping you, so make sure to follow along through this
series of articles on hearing the voice of God, because the primary reason some
Christians do not hear God’s voice is because they have never been taught. Even
Jesus' disciples had to ask Jesus, to teach them to pray.
