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.

Images of God

What image or concept of the divine, found in the Bible or another source of inspiration, is most meaningful to you and why? What do you think it tells us about God and what do you think it reveals about you?

Carissa:
The images of God that I have found compelling have definitely reflected my age and stage of development through the years. I remember loving the idea of God as father when I was a little girl. Then when I was a college student, I stumbled into the language of an intimate God. Perhaps it was cliche for a women’s college student to appreciate the “Jesus is my boyfriend” imagery, but the idea of a God who saw me completely and loved me just that way was nevertheless powerful. Those concepts of God are still a part of me, like rings in a theological tree, but they are now more deeply embedded, far from the primary mode I imagine when I pray or lead worship.

At this point, I am finding a “big enough” idea of God most compelling. Perhaps this is a bit apophatic, since I’m certainly not most compelled by any single visual image of God these days. But above anything else, the concept of God that is most meaningful to me right at this moment is a God who is ‘big enough’ for anything: big enough for my questions, big enough for my problems, big enough for me to be angry, big enough to comfort my deepest wounds...and that image is meaningful to me because it doesn’t just stay with me, right? God is also big enough for the world: big enough for the world’s questions, big enough for the world’s problems, big enough for entire nations to cry out in lament, big enough to heal the world’s deepest wounds.

I probably won’t know what this reveals about me until I can look through the glasses of hindsight, but I do think it has something to do with my shift into church leadership. As my job becomes bigger, I need a God who is bigger. As I am asked to hold the weight of a congregation’s prayers, I need a God who can hold all those prayers. As I am asked to speak to the deepest of wounds and the hardest of divides, I need a God who can hold it all together.

David:
First of all, I really love Carissa’s image of “rings in a theological tree.” What a great way to conceptualize how growth doesn’t leave behind, but emerges out of and relies on, earlier stages of growth.

For some time now, the image of the divine that has been most meaningful to me is the parakletos, from John 14. I love that it’s such a multi-layered word -- it can be translated as Companion, Comforter, and Advocate. I love that it’s an image with connotations of justice (the parakletos, in secular terms, was likely a legal advocate who accompanied the accused through the trial process) but also with a personal focus. I love how it provides the basis for a theology of accompaniment. And I love that it’s a Trinitarian image that can be grasped a bit more easily than some of the more ethereal theology out there -- Jesus is using the term to refer to the Spirit, but he says God the Father will send “another parakletos,” the connotation being that Jesus is also parakletos. Jesus and the Spirit, sent by God to be God present-with-us, as companion, comforter, advocate, and friend.

As far as what it tells us about God: The Advocate is the opposite of the Accuser or the Tester, which is fantastic. It tells us that God is on humanity’s side rather than over-and-against us. The Advocate is also God as defense attorney, which means that I don’t have to create elaborate theologies to defend God -- God’s got that covered. (I love a God thumb in the eye of theodicy). God is a companion on our journey, a comforter in our affliction, and a voice speaking with and for the oppressed. An advocate has to listen carefully and then to speak.

My attraction to this image probably says a lot about me. For one, it’s been really helpful for me in formulating how I understand my own ministry, especially since I’m not currently in a traditional pastoral setting. My own call, formed by the Spirit, is to companionship, advocacy, and compassion -- all the while with the understanding that it is God who is ultimately both the source and completion of this work. Also, I’d say my interest in this image or metaphor reflects my personal discomfort with a lot of the traditional language about God, which I often find too much of a projection of the things we value as a culture, just bigger and better: we want to be strong, so God is the most-powerful; we want to know it all, so God is the most-knowing; we want to be able to plan everything, so God has the most-plan. Maybe all of that is true, but I just am never quite sure what to do with that language. I like the vulnerability and riskiness of the image of parakletos, and what it calls us to do and be.

Pat:
Both really great responses. A god that is big enough and a god that is in my corner is a pretty powerful gospel. I don’t think my response is all that different.

In school I had to write my own Christology and my concluding paragraph was titled “Jesus Christ as Hope.” I think that’s where I feel most comfortable grounding my understanding of God.

@Carissa, you talked about a God that is big enough to handle the questions, problems, laments, and wounds of the world. In that "big enough God,” I see hope. Hope that there are answers, that things can be mended, that we can find joy again, and that we can be well again. 

@FHosey, you sort of touched on the same thing. There’s meaning in thinking about God as Advocate because in doing so, we’re shown how God comforts the afflicted and speaks with and for the oppressed. Again, God’s presence is hope. Hope that things can and will be different than they are right now.

When we think about where hope shows up in the world, I think that the list of places we come up with is strikingly similar to the list of places the Bible tells us that God shows up - places where people are painfully aware that all is not right in the world. In places where people hurt, where people are marginalized, where people aren’t treated like people, we might expect to find crushing defeat...but instead we find God…who is hope.

I think it’s interesting that in reflecting on what your preferred images of God say about you, you both went immediately to your call and vocation. I found myself doing the same thing. I think that maybe I tend to approach the role of the Christian, or minister, or pastor as someone who also seeks to embody hope. Maybe we are all called to be with people who are desperately longing for whatever comes next, to help them bring that vision into focus, and to realize it. For me a big part of being a Christian is looking into the future (guided by hope) and trying to pull what we see there into the present. So maybe what it says about me, is I’m a dreamer. Five Iron Frenzy says it nicely, “the farsighted see better things."

Leigh:
I also appreciate the analogy Carissa made about our evolving concepts of God being like the rungs of a tree — markings that identify where we have been, and in turn, give us a fuller understanding of where we are now. I can see how this is true in my own life, and yet in some ways I feel as if my current image of God has required a fundamental shift in the way I approach the subject of the divine.
The shift happened when I spent some time considering 1 John 4:8, which says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” My interpretation of this verse has always been that God is one who loves. In other words, God is a being who has many characteristics (peacemaker, liberator, friend, etc), but God’s primary modis operandi is love. However, when I revisited this verse a few years ago I realized the author doesn’t cast God as a being at all, or at least in the traditional (if subconscious) classification of God as an object that extends love and is worthy of love. Instead, the author seems to say God is found in the act of love, or in the experience of love itself. Therefore, whenever we give or receive love it is God passing between us, connecting us.

I think love is a powerful way of understanding God for a few reasons. One reason is that it is able to hold seemingly paradoxical truths together. For instance, why is it that the act of surrender feels both like something we choose and something that happens to us? Well, Donald Miller puts it perfectly (as he often does) in Blue Like Jazz: “Love is as much something that happens to you as it is something you decide upon.” The same goes for sanctifying grace, i.e. we are making choices to become kinder, more gracious, more forgiving people… by the power of God’s spirit working within us. Does your sense of calling come from you or God? Answer: Yes. Our compulsion to care for the needs of our community -a desire born of love- is God’s Spirit stirring within us.

Sadly, we tend to talk about love in very ethereal terms, but love has the ability to shape us in concrete ways. Love can uproot prejudice and turn an enemy into a friend. Love can overcome lines of division of every kind. It can take wounds —so dark and so deep we thought they could never be reached— and heal them. When my Dad’s health took a turn for the worse the morning of his death, the people who were with him thought I might not make it down in time to say goodbye — but he waited for me. I still believe it was love that allowed him to fight off death. I believe this literally and with my whole heart.

The other reason I find “God = love” so compelling is because love is the substance of empathy, i.e. the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. I see this as the point and power of the cross. God dies because we die.

Which leads me to my other primary image of God: God is a wild old dog. This phrase is taken from a Patty Griffin song by the same title. It goes…

God is a wild old dog
Someone left out on the highway
I seen him running by me
He don't belong to no one now

I don’t know if it’s the brassy melancholy of Griffin’s voice, the radical departure from traditional God imagery, or the image of an abandoned dog roaming down a dusty road, but this song gets me every time… Stav sent me the mp3 the week my Dad passed away. I couldn’t listen to it for a while, but when I finally made myself it resonated with the grief and loss of meaning I was experiencing.

It's lonely on the highway
Sometimes a heart can turn to dust
Get whittled down to nothing
Broken down and crushed
In with the bones of
Wild old dogs

There are so many terrible things that happen in this world and in the lives of good people that I will never have to suffer. But surely there is someone or something that understands their pain first hand.
Love allows us to empathize with one another, and it is the thing that holds the shattered pieces of our hearts together when we are in place of grieving. I see love as the source hope you described Pat, in the Spirit as parakletos you mentioned David, and the thing that is “big enough” for Carissa’s concerns.

What do these intertwining images reveal about me? Maybe it’s that at the end of the day the only thing worth the bother is love. I used to —and frequently still do— want others to perceive me as talented, knowledgeable, and competent. But as I get older I feel more and more like what I want most is to be known as someone who loves well. Because in my life, it’s been the small and (sometimes) large ways people have shown me love that has made all the difference.

Launching This Experiment

Acts 2:44 describes an early moment of church saying, "All who believed were together and had all things in common."

"...all things in common."

That's a part of church we don't see all that often anymore.

We're good at believing.
We're pretty good at being together.

...but holding all things in common? That's a tall order.

The bad news (which is actually good news) is that I think we really are all called to live into this seemingly impossible practice of the ancient church.  The (other) good news is that the category of "all things" has a pretty wide wingspan.

Maybe we can start by sharing our thoughts, our interpretations, our wonderings, our epiphanies, and our confusion.  I think that's one small, but very important area beneath the "all things" umbrella.

Let the sharing begin.  After all, a shared blog has to count for something right?