Sermon preached by Emily Tanis-Likkel

July 16, 2006

Psalm 85:8-13

              I spent the last week with my husband Brett’s family up at Birch Bay, Washington, all of us gathered in from different parts of the country.  Natasha, my sister-in-law, told me about a message that she had heard from God.  Last year she heard an audible voice say to her that she was going to have a son and that she was to name him Canaan, and that he would be full of promise and become a man of great influence.  There was no doubt in her mind that it was God that she was hearing. Soon after this experience she became pregnant.  A few months into the pregnancy she and her husband began doubting the name, knowing that although Canaan was the name of the Promised Land, it was also the name of Noah’s grandson who was cursed for the wrongful actions of his father.  Was this really the name that they wanted for their son?  Natasha heard the voice of God again with the same message, that she was going to have a son and that she was to name him Canaan.  The name, she realized, was redeemed, and was given the meaning of promise and influence.  I was delighted to meet our two-month old nephew Canaan last week, and to learn how he came to have his name.  I look forward to discovering how he lives into his name.  My sister-in-law has had several spiritual experiences that many Christians might assume don’t occur anymore.  Sometimes it seems that actually hearing from God only happened in Biblical times, or that it never really happened.  Yet Natasha is very open to the Spirit, she reads the Bible regularly, prays, and is very much in tune with how God is working in her life.  I believe this openness allows her to hear God.  She is ready to listen. 

              Many Christians want to hear from God in this way.  We want direct communication in order to make good decisions, and to know we are pleasing God.  We may want to hear from God simply to have had such a tangible experience with God.  Yet hearing God audibly is not the ordinary way that God communicates with us.  Even people with enormous faith and dutiful Christian lives often go through to the end without hearing from God audibly.  Yet most do discover that God speaks to us in all kinds of ways.  God speaks in a still, small voice that materializes within our own thoughts.  God speaks to us through the Bible, in the specific texts and the greater themes.  God also speaks through other spiritual writings, as well as fiction, movies, dreams, and the words of others.  The avenues God uses to speak to us is limitless. 

Psalm 85:8 reads “Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.”  If we listen closely for God’s words to us, we will hear words of peace.  We may not be able to hear in the way that we expect.  We may not hear the way that our neighbor hears.  But God is speaking, and wanting us to hear. 

              One of the ways to hear God is in the pages of the Bible.  Although written by humankind, the Bible reveals God to us.  We can learn a lot about how God wants us to live from the Bible.  The principles we find in the Bible can be used for modern day situations.  We can read and discover how Jesus taught people to give money to the poor, and then apply that to our lives today.  We can read about how important it is to love one another, even people we don’t like all that well.  We can read about how Jesus accepted everyone, and healed people who were broken in body or spirit.  That can tell us something about our need to accept and work for the healing of one another, and of the world.  Yet the Bible is not simply a guidebook.  The Bible can also help deepen our relationship with God.  There is a difference between dissecting a passage from the Bible and praying Psalm 23.  Both are fruitful practices, but are vastly different.  We might discover something that God wants us to hear from studying the Bible.  Yet I discover much more when I read only a couple of verses slowly and meditatively, chewing on them and praying them.  It is this kind of reflective reading that opens me to hearing from God.  

              Another way to hear God is in prayer.  We often think of prayer as talking to God, but prayer is just as much about listening.   Prayer flows naturally from studying the Bible or other spiritual writings.  More types of prayer exist than I would be able to describe this morning.  One of the types that is focused more on hearing God is in meditation.  In Christian meditation one does not try to completely empty the mind, but instead tries to let go of distractions in order to open up to the Spirit.  Teachers of Christian meditation suggest beginning with a time of centering, getting into a comfortable position and breathing deeply.  After centering, one would choose a word or phrase, such as “love” or “peace,” or the traditional “Lord have mercy.”  This would be the phrase to return to in the mind when distracting thoughts pass by.  Meditation is very effective at deepening the prayer lives of people from many different religions.  St. John of the Cross has called this kind of prayer “the practice of loving attentiveness.”  It is opening ourselves to God, to quiet down and listen.  Meditation isn’t the only way.  We can be open to hearing God through journaling, drawing, or listening to music.  Prayer-walking can be a powerful way to hear God speaking.  Some find it helpful to have a daily walking routine when they are able to exercise and pray simultaneously.  Prayer describes all different kinds of contact with God.  Frederick Buechner wrote that “We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not.”

              Hearing God through other people is one of the primary ways that people have been listening to God through the ages.  In the Old Testament we hear about many different prophets that spoke to the people on behalf of God.  Prophets communicated warning and instruction as well as words of peace and encouragement.  Today God continues to speak both through charismatic leaders and ordinary people.  If our ears are open, perhaps we will hear divine words through a neighbor or relative.  Maybe you’ve surprised yourself by saying just the right words of comfort or wise counsel to a friend.  Have you ever thought, “Did that just come out of my mouth?”  Maybe it was God speaking through you. 

              What should we be listening for?  What might God want to tell us?  God might be prompting us to some kind of action.  God may showing us something about our purpose in life. Christina Rossetti wrote a poem about discerning God’s will for our lives:

Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.  Grant us ears to hear, Eyes to see, Wills to obey, Hearts to love; Then declare what you will, Reveal what you will, Command what you will, Demand what you will.  God may not always be calling us to action, instead God might be advising us to do less. We may hear that we are to just be for awhile, to simply catch our breath and be present to God.  God may be encouraging us to take better care of ourselves.  We may discern this from paying attention to our bodies and realizing that we are holding a lot of tension or making the wrong life-style choices.  God might be saying, “don’t be afraid; I’m with you.”  The Psalm we heard this morning tells us that one of the messages God gives us is words of peace.  When I stop and pray, I often feel my shoulders relax and my breathing deepens.  God wants us to trust that no matter what happens, God cares about us and will never leave us.  God brings peace to our hearts, and yearns for us to be at peace with God and with one another. 

               So how do we discern when we are hearing God or mistaking someone else for God?  How do we know when we are talking ourselves into thinking that we are receiving a message from God?  Sometimes it is not at all clear. It may help to speak with a discerning friend. It also can’t hurt to just keep on praying about it.  Dallas Willard, in his book Hearing God, explains that sometimes we don’t hear God because we might not be tuned to the right frequency.   He says “The fact that we do not hear does not mean that God is not speaking to us.”   We need to be attuned to God, by regularly talking with God, listening to God, developing spiritual practices, noticing now God is at work among and around us.  We also can widen the avenues of listening to God, and open our ears in all that we do to be attentive to how God is speaking. 

              Perhaps the most difficult part of listening for God is the need for silence in our lives.  Many of our lives are very noisy.  It isn’t all bad noise, but it is still sound.  Jesus is a model for us of the need for regular times of quiet.  The Gospels tell us that he often left the crowds of people to seek a secluded place to pray and reflect. The crowds didn’t understand this need, and kept on finding him and taking him out of his solitude.  Just as we can’t be a good friend if we do all of the talking in every conversation, we can’t cultivate our friendship with Jesus very well if we only ask for what we need and forget to listen.  It is easy to forget to listen, because many of us are not accustomed to silence.  We may think of silence as awkward, unnecessary, or strange.  Yet out of the silence, God speaks.

Opening our ears to hear God is a way of saying ‘here I am.’  It isn’t about searching for a spiritual experience.  It is about seeking the mind of God.  Hearing God means paying attention to what is happening in our lives, because God is with us every step of the way.  What I hear most often from God is that God is with me.  I realize that I am where I am today because of the Spirit’s work in my life.  God has never left me, and is always a peaceful presence in my life.  I hear God most often from writing out prayers, especially after reflecting on Scripture.  I hear God through the people in my life. God speaks to me through those wise with years, as well as through children. The Psalmist  wrote, “Let me hear what God the LORD will speak.”  Let me hear.  Let that be our prayer.

P. 69.