Building Up the Spiritual Life

The Practice of Listening

by Wang Zhi-xue

Hearing the voice of the Lord is a basic exercise for building up our spiritual life. Those who do not practice listening cannot grow spiritually. Proclamation plays a very important role in our service to the Lord, but when there are no listeners it is simply a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal (I Corinthians 13:1). The words that bring about fundamental life-changes are those that come from attentive listening.

Those who are humble listen patiently; those who are arrogant do not listen because they are eager to show off and they are eager to be in charge - for them words are the most effective means for them to show off and to control everybody else. During our Bible studies in church as well as at home, we must learn to listen and we must encourage an atmosphere of listening to God's voice. We must not rush to speak nor should we be quick to criticize, because the important thing is not what we are saying, but what God is saying to us and through us. What we say is worthless if it does not come from our inner life. If our words do not result in Christian life, they belong to the darkness.

As God's children we must practice hearing the voice of our Heavenly Father. During this practice, we will have the experience of being rebuilt, being guided and being transformed. More importantly, we will have the experience of "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5), and we will possess a faith that is truly our own.

1. Obstacles to listening to God

There are three main obstacles that prevent us hearing the voice of God: sin, misunderstanding and a lack of methodology.

Because of our sin, it is possible for us to live in a state of spiritual mediocrity and laziness in which we are unwilling to do more than what is minimally required for a Christian. Furthermore, we are afraid of hearing any messages we are unwilling to accept so we confine God's words to a safe, religious area, namely, the four walls of the church building during Sunday services.

In addition, we mistakenly suspect that listening to God's voice is unbiblical. It is true that the Bible contains the entire revelation of God: God's words, whether they are concerning Himself and His glory, or about mankind's salvation, faith and daily needs, are either clearly recorded in the Bible or can be derived from the Bible as we approach it with honesty, openness and good sense. No new revelation from the Spirit or human tradition may ever be added to the Bible.

Listening to God's voice, however, is not the same as searching for some new revelation from God. The content and the result of our listening to God's voice must be regulated and discerned by the Bible. Scriptural revelation teaches us principles, but it is the gentle voice of God which guides us through putting these principles into practice in daily life. While the teachings of the Bible apply to all of us, the voice of God is directed more to the individual. As Bernard of Clairvaux said, it is not enough to know about God's salvation, we must truly hear the Lord say to us, "Your sins have been forgiven."

Testimonies to hearing the gentle voice of God are found again and again throughout church history:

In 386 A.D., Augustine was going through tremendous inner struggles when through his tears he heard the Lord's voice: "Pick it up and read! Pick it up and read!" He turned in his Bible to Romans 13:13-14. These verses made him repent and believe in the Lord.

In 1926, as he was on his knees praying, Song Shang-jie heard in his spirit the Lord's gentle and tender voice, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." (I Corinthians 1:19). This experience strengthened his resolve against flaunting his own knowledge and talent while serving the Lord.

In 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while leading the African Americans to fight for their rights, received anonymous phone calls threatening to kill him. He felt so helpless that he was almost ready to quit. But then he heard the Lord's voice as he was praying: "Rise for righteousness! Rise for truth! I will be with you forever." So his courage returned and he was able to continue his fight for justice.

In 1993, a Mrs. Wang was packing for her husband who was preparing to set out for Russia on a short missionary trip. As she was walking by a candy store, she heard the Lord's voice telling her to buy some candy. She couldn't understand it but she obeyed. She bought a bunch of candies and packed them. It turned out that these candies played an unexpected role during an unscheduled children's evangelistic meeting run by the missionary team.

Hearing the Lord's voice does not require being a great spiritual figure, but every believer who is filled with the Holy Spirit can learn. If you do not know where to start, begin by learning to listen from the Bible.

2. Hearing God's Voice from the Bible

When we listen, the Lord speaks. When we obey, the Lord acts... We don't tell the Lord what to do but we ask the Lord to tell us what to do... (quoted from Frank Buchman).

Eugene Peterson points out that when we open the Bible we should turn our eyes into ears, and then with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will experience hearing the Lord's gentle voice as we read. A.W. Tozer gives detailed descriptions and insights into how to hear God's voice through the words of Scripture:

It is very important to keep quiet and wait for the Lord. It is preferable to be alone as we open the Bible to read. As we do so, we will be able to come closer to the Lord and will begin to hear Him speaking to us in our hearts. I think most of us will find ourselves going through the following stages: at first it is as if we hear somebody walking in the garden; then we hear somebody murmuring; then comes the moment of joy when the Holy Spirit sheds His light on the Scripture. What first sounded like a faint voice or murmuring now becomes comprehensible words, uttered as if by an old friend, full of warmth, sincerity and clarity. Then life and light enter our hearts and we are able to see Jesus in our spirit, to rest in his arms and embrace him. He is our savior and he is the Lord of our lives.

God chooses to meet with us in the Bible, and it is in the words of the Bible that our rendezvous takes place. Reading the Bible is like going to meet God. God has always been waiting for us, but often we are not aware that He has come. Therefore, solitude and quietness help train our ears and our hearts; these are indispensable if we want to hear God. Meditation helps us hear His voice clearly, from the remote murmurings to comprehensible words to secret whisperings. It is important to remember that throughout the entire process of listening, we must humble ourselves and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather any man-made methodologies or "steps".

3. Hearing God's Voice in Daily Life

God is the Lord of the world's history as well as the Lord of our personal history. He is active in our life and purifies our life through His twin graces of creation and salvation. The spiritual life does not mean getting away from reality to search out God. Spiritual life is to be with God and to walk with Him in the midst of daily life. Our daily life, therefore, is the important center stage where we can hear the Lord. The more ordinary our daily life is, the easier it can be for us miss the Lord's voice because we often mistakenly believe that God appears only in the extraordinary and wonderful moments.

Hearing Him speak through Scripture is the basis for our hearing God's voice in daily life. The more we understand how to hear and become familiar with the voice of God in the Bible, the more sensitive we will be to knowing the presence of God and hearing His voice in daily life. Similarly, hearing the voice of God in our daily life also enriches our hearing of the Bible. If our hearing from the Scriptures is not accompanied by our hearing in daily life, then we are living a faith that is still theoretical and abstract. On the other hand, we must recognize that there are such things as coincidences in our lives. There are things that just happen for no particular reason and we should not interpret every single thing that happens in spiritual terms.

We must pay special attention to listening to the Lord while we are going through difficult experiences in our lives. C. S. Lewis said that human sufferings are God's loudspeakers with which He awakens this "hearing-impaired" generation: "God whispers in our joys; He talks in our conscience; He shouts through our sufferings." It's not that God likes to see us struggle in distress and bitterness, but many times we simply ignore God's whisper and so He has no choice but to speak to us through sufferings so that we will wake up, repent and learn the lessons of spiritual growth.

Let us pray together: "Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening." (I Samuel 3:9) We must also pay attention to any reminder from the Holy Spirit: "Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." (Hebrew 3:15)

This article is Part Four of the series of The Buildup and Practice for God's People. The first three parts were published in the third issue of Special Editions, the 28^th and the 29^th issues of Overseas Campus.