Moonless midnight - or a cheery summer's morning? ‘Hearing’ God – a problem with words

I’ve got a problem as a writer that crops up again and again:  How do you hear God?  It can be misleading to say, ‘I heard God speak’ or, 'I heard God say..’ Certainly, the great majority of the time we don’t hear Him speak in an audible voice (I’ve never heard the audible voice of God.) I mean, do we 'sense' His voice or 'feel' His voice or 'perceive' His voice? Which verb should we use? I’m not sure.

Of course, I’m a good evangelical – and I hold that my main source of hearing God’s voice is through the Bible. Most of the time God speaks through the written word (thank God for those amazing people who fought (and died) for it to be translated into the vernacular. So, I can ‘read’ His voice – well that’s another angle.  

Elijah describes God’s voice as a still, small one. Not loud, not tempestuous, but like still air, gently, almost imperceptibly, blowing across your face. It’s noiseless .. but then others have described it quite differently: it feels like a hammer or fire in the bones (Jeremiah 23:29; 20:9.) 

Perhaps, at times, I can say I have ‘received’ God’s voice rather like my mobile receives signals. Somehow, spirit touches spirit - it’s very hard to explain. The psalmist says, ’deep calls to deep…’ (42:7) Something deep out there, but also very near at hand, actually so near at hand that it comes from within, connects with my ‘deep’ and I recognise, ‘that was God.’

This deep ‘word,’ this voiceless voice, takes us by surprise.  It does not come with what we would expect. I think of the time when wretched with condemnation I ‘received’ the word, the notion, the something, that this other ‘deep’ embraces me and my ‘deep’ with an unconditional blanket of love, looking beyond all the turmoil that I sometimes am. It comes with unexpected comfort in the storm; equally it comes with reality, bringing the uncomfortable when all I want is peace.

And sometimes I get it wrong … and I am loath to say ‘God says…’ I much prefer, ‘ I think God has said..’  We all make many mistakes, as James has kindly pointed out to us (James 3:2) …..but that doesn’t matter too much, not in eternal terms anyway, as long as we learn from our mistakes.

One thing I do know: ‘receiving’ God’s word makes all the difference, yes ALL the difference, the difference between a moonless midnight and a cheery summer’s morning, the difference between, well, death and life.

Make me a better receiver .. deep calls to deep….o mighty God.