hearing god's voice

The week after I got broken up with, I cried a lot and ate a lot of ice cream and listened to a lot of Dixie Chicks songs. I threw myself at rails and boxes on my snowboard and got my nose pierced and I literally did not shut up about what had happened. I word-vomited my entire heart onto anyone who would so much as ask how I was doing. It had been a year long relationship with the coolest person in the world and it had been Christ-centred and loving and genuine and all of a sudden it was OVER. What. The. Heck. This was NOT a part of the plan! Why would God lead me into a relationship that was going to end in ugly-crying at the airport on my own?

Trying to figure out this ‘WHY, GOD?’ has been a wild process of learning how to hear God’s voice, and I just wanted to share in this post a little bit of what I’ve been learning about COMMUNICATION. When we look at the relationship between Jesus and the Father, they were in constant communication. Jesus frequently withdrew to the wilderness to spend time with his father, on some occasions spending all night talking to him. There’s this level of VULNERABILITY in this relationship.

The greatest thing that God desires with us is intimacy. He loves to draw us close to him and never leave our side. I never really understood Amanda Cook’s song ‘Closer’ until this made sense to me. I always believe that there is great intimacy through understanding; and understanding through communication. If I sat at the head of a large dining room table, and our old mate Jesus was sitting on the other end, we could have a conversation. We’d be pretty far away from each other and we’d kind of have to shout, but we could have a decent conversation. We could get our points across. I think sometimes we want God to shout to us. We expect neon lights flashing in the sky or the audible voice of God descending from the heavens. It would be SO MUCH easier for him to be shouting at us from the other side of the room.

The issue is that when God is sitting at the foot of the table, there is a lot of space left open between us. There is any number of empty seats between us and him. So maybe our family will come sit down at one of these seats, and our friends at another. Our careers. Sports. Our own image. Television. Eventually once I’ve invited six or seven other people to fill these empty seats and each one of them decided to try and engage in conversation with me, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to communicate with God all the way at the other end of the table. God doesn’t want to shout at us from the other side of the room. Sure, he’d get the message across eventually. But it’s impossible to have an intimate and vulnerable conversation with a person when your only channel of communication is in competition with seven other people having a shouting match. It can almost become a game of spiritual Chinese Whispers.

If I were to get up from my seat at the table and pull up a seat at the feet of our old mate Jesus, all my other dinner guests would probably look at me a little bit funny. But Jesus could begin to speak to me – in a whisper. I’d be able to hear it faintly, but I’d be straining to understand so I’d want to move closer and lean in and put my ear right up next to him. I love the lyrics to ‘Closer’ -

Your love has ravished my heart And taken me over, taken me over And all I want is to be With you forever, with you forever

So pull me a little closer Take me a little deeper I want to know your heart I want to know your heart 'Cause your love is so much sweeter Than anything I’ve tasted I wanna know your heart

I could never run from your love I could never hide from your love I could never run from your love Further than you’ll find me

So pull me a little closer Take me a little deeper I wanna know your heart 'Cause your love is so much stronger Than anything I’ve faced and I wanna know your heart

Pull me a little closer, take me a little deeper, I want to know your heart. What does it mean to be a lover of the presence of God? What does it mean to be in RELATIONSHIP with Him? John 10:3-4 says, ‘The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognise his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice.’ How do we learn how to hear God’s voice? Among all the loudest voices that we’ve allowed at our tables, how to we RECOGNISE HIS VOICE AND COME TO HIM?

I don’t really have the answer to my ‘WHY, GOD?’ I’m still sad and confused and angry and having to figure out how to trust my own feet again. I’ve watched ‘Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again’ a total of five times in the month and a half since my break-up, which if anything is evidence that I’m seriously not quite over it. What I have learned is to draw near to God. I’ve learned that the only way to recognise God’s voice when He is speaking is to spend time in communication with him. Whoah. Cool.