How do you hear God?

Prompt from Carissa:

As ministry leaders, we are asked all the time to share the content of our call story. But we rarely talk about the way(s) in which we heard that call. How do you hear from God? Has that changed over time?

Pat:

Okay, after like a week of being too scared to write about this, I’m going to try to tackle it.

When I tell people about how I ended up in ministry, two aspects of my narrative stand out to me as possibly being relevant to the question above.

1. My behavior changed and I noticed.
2. Other people pointed out obvious things to me to which I was totally blind.

Every time that I tell my story I end up saying some variation of, “As I was approaching the end of college and wrestling with what was next for me, all of the sudden out of nowhere my faith became really important to me.”

I started asking questions (of myself and of whoever would listen) about what the heck I was going to do with my life - about what I was “supposed” to do with my life - and then I found my answer to those questions in my own actions.  It dawned on me that I was suddenly making Bible study and prayer priorities.  I was suddenly being intentional about carving out time to think about God and about faith, and I ultimately realized that that might mean something…

So, when it comes to how I heard God’s call…I think that something in me actually responded - something that wasn’t my brain.  My behavior changed, I noticed that, and then connected it back to a call.

I noticed the ripples in the water and then thought, “Huh. I guess God chucked a stone in here.”

...and while that was happening, while I started to notice changes in myself, people (prophets?) around me helped me to articulate what I was seeing and what it meant.  People said things like, “Have you considered music ministry?  That could be an option.” and, “If you think you are going to go to seminary, why wouldn’t you just go ahead and become a pastor?”  Obvious things.  Obvious things that I’m not sure I would have picked up on if someone else hadn’t voiced them for me.

In hindsight, it all seems very clear, and I’ve told the story enough times that it’s nice and polished...but does all that mean anything going forward?  As I wrestle with what the heck I’m called to do now (because apparently that part doesn’t end…), how do I hear that call?

Maybe I need to pay more attention to my behavior, because I might actually already be hearing and responding.  Where am I already investing myself that feels sacred?

And maybe I also need to listen to the prophets around me who, from their vantage point, see clear patterns where I’m seeing chaos.

Perhaps we hear God’s call most clearly by becoming aware of how we’re already responding (unbeknownst to us) and by hearing a trusted friend (or three) say that they’re seeing it too.

David:

Thanks for the prompt, Carissa!

So, a story:

During seminary, I was trying to make a tough decision. I was having a really hard time thinking through it, and wasn’t hearing anything in particular from God. (All of which is par for the course for me -- I’ll get to that).

I’d heard that the early Methodists sometimes practiced “bibliomancy,” which meant just flipping open the Bible to a random passage and seeing if it had anything to say to them. I actually think this is a terrible idea -- I mean, what if you land on, like, “Then he went out and hung himself” (Matthew 27:5b). But anyway, worth a try. So I was sitting on the Metro, and I flipped open my Bible, and it landed on Psalm 139. You know, like, “Where could I go to get away from your spirit? Where could I go to escape your presence? If I went up to heaven, you would be there. If I went down to the grave, you would be there too.”

Which is all beautiful and assuring and whatever, but, like, totally useless as far as decision-making goes. The last thing I wanted to hear at that moment was, “Well, do whatever, I’ll be there.”

But of course, that’s the truth -- way more truth than has ever been produced by any of my frenzied thinking about big decisions.

So, how do I hear from God?

Rarely, and quietly, and least when it comes to any sort of concrete message or call.

I once did a few sessions of spiritual direction with a Jesuit priest, Father Howard Gray (who now, as it happens, is like my boss’s boss’s boss). Father Gray is a literature professor. He is also sort of like Yoda, but that’s another story. Anyway. He talked to me during one session about the concept of the “author’s voice.” It’s been awhile since I’ve taken a literature class, so I might not be describing the concept in the best way, but the “author’s voice” in a piece of literature isn’t things the author says directly to the reader. It’s more like how the stylistic choices that an author makes communicates, throughout a whole body of work, something about the author. A quick google search turned up this summary,which I like: “It is the personality of the writer shining through the characters, narrator, and descriptions.”

So say God’s the author, and discernment is listening to God’s voice. What Father Gray was pointing out to me was this sense in which “God’s voice” is like the author’s voice -- it’s not really things that God says directly to me, so much as the way God “shines through” when I look back at my life, look back at the choices I’ve made and the choices that have been made for me, the way I’ve reacted to changes in my life, the way I’ve dealt with transitions, etc., etc. Some of that is maybe just me and my willfulness  and my mistakes, but discernment is less waiting for God to talk to me directly, which rarely happens (and is usually less “do this” as much as “well that wasn’t so good, was it”) and more about seeing where God has shone through and is shining through.

And by nature, that changes over time, because life keeps happening and the amount of “material” I’m reflecting on keeps growing and my reactions change and shift over time. So whether or not God’s voice is changing, my understanding of God’s voice is changing.

I wrote a thing over on my own blog a little while back about how I hear God’s voice, sometimes. So I’ll share that here as well:

              ---

What happens when I pray

              ---

Whenever I try to pray

  I find myself

    (or at least, I fail to lose myself)

  distracted

     (in record time)

  by

     10,000 things

By failures and grudges

  and time tables and pay scales

  by the good and the bad and --

     well, mainly, by the ugliness that simmers behind my smiles.

And if, by chance or by grace,

  I catch myself

  as I churn through the sludge of old, tired thoughts

And if, by chance or by grace,

  I don't turn the catching into more sludge

  fodder for the curving in

then --

  sometimes --

     some precious times --

        I can have a quiet, inward chuckle at myself.

And if, by chance or by grace,

  I do

Then the churn quiets down enough

  that I can hear --

     just barely

     out of the corner of my soul's eye

God chuckling softly with me.

You see,

  prayer is a serious thing.

But God knows

  not to take it too seriously.

Leigh: [Thank you for posing this question Carissa!]

The handful of moments I felt as if God was calling me into ministry have been defined by two primary characteristics: surprise and humility.

When I left for college I had a clear passion for Jesus and for Christian community, but for some reason pursuing ordained ministry as a fulltime vocation never occurred to me. I’m not sure why, but if I had to guess, it might be because all the ordained elders I knew up to that point were men. So I put this passion on the back burner for awhile.

Three years into college I decided to take a break from school and spend the summer doing urban ministry somewhere - anywhere. Long story short, I ended up in Denver serving with a Mennonite organization called DOOR. DOOR hires summer staff to take church groups around the city to volunteer with local non-profits. I worked with a bunch of agencies that summer, but my main commitment was to a place called Network Cafe, a coffee house and day shelter for men and women living on the streets. On day while I was playing checkers with the Presbyterian pastor who started Network cafe, he asked what I wanted to do after college. To my complete surprise I said, “well, I’d like to go to seminary and do full time ministry.” If I remember correctly, he ran off to grab me a Christian ministry version of the Meyer’s Briggs personality test (who knew there was such a thing?), while I sat in shock by what I had just said. I never thought about doing any of those things! If I had, I’d never said them out loud.  

Rob Bell says God has two names: God and SURPRISE! I think most people connect the concept of a surprise revelation to Saul’s vision on the road to damascus, or the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, but my experience of SURPRISE! didn’t feel quite that dramatic. I didn’t hear a voice, or see a vision, or get knocked off my donkey -- or any other animal for that matter. It wasn’t a revelation that came from something (or someone) beyond me. It was more the surprise of discovering something that was within me all along.

As I tried to pursue this newly discovered call, I found that it was extremely difficult to set aside feelings of self doubt and inadequacy. There was a voice in my head that loved to point out all of the imperfections that would (or should) disqualify me from preaching the gospel — a little thing therapists like to call “imposter syndrome.”

One night, overcome with feelings of inadequacy, I drove down to the beach and sat on the shoreline, praying and pleading with God to tell me why He had called me if I wasn’t worthy of such a call. In that moment two thoughts crossed my mind simultaneously —  neither the result of conscious effort. The first was of the disciples. I thought about how young and flawed they were, how they never seemed to get what Jesus was talking about. They were the most unqualified, imperfect people Christ could have chosen to be disciples. In that same instance, asking myself, “why call me God when I am so unworthy?,”  I heard a voice say: exactly.

I don’t know how many times in the bible God says, “when you are weak I am strong,” or some other variation of that statement, but I never got it until that moment, sitting on the beach.

I think God calls humbled people, because the good news is shared best by those who have experienced it for themselves. Whether or not this was God really speaking to me on the beach, it gave me the courage to keep going.