A Beginning Word
A Beginning Word
of the soul and the language of our spirit.
Jeremy Taylor
Jesus Christ is alive and here to teach his people himself. His voice is not hard to hear; his vocabulary is not difficult to understand. But learning to listen well and to hear correctly is no small task.
My first conscious experience of hearing the voice of Jesus occurred when I was a college student. It grew out of a period of genuine frustration. Because of my poor academic training and a less-than-stellar intellect, it seemed I had to study harder than everyone else if I was to succeed in college. On top of that I was carrying two part-time jobs to bring in enough money to put food on the table and to buy books. My first job was at a cannery on the cleanup crew after the night shift. I worked from four to six each morning steam-cleaning the machinery, and I got back to the college just in time to wash dishes at the dining commons, my second job.
It was a perfect schedule, for I could do all of this before my first class began at eight a.m. Then at lunch and supper I washed dishes again, which allowed me to eat at the dining commons. In those days many students complained about the food service at the college . . . but not me. Both of my parents had been ill and died earlier, so my two brothers and I lived on whatever we could scrape together. For me college dining food was banquet fare.
In addition to the work and study I, together with a good college friend, had formed a ministry effort with the rather quaint title of “Youth Accent.” This ministry work took us to churches each weekend, where between us we would speak five or six times from Friday evening to Sunday noon, after which we would jump in the car and make our way back to the campus. Then too I was doing some service work at a local church . . . oh, and I was involved in student government . . . all of which made for a heavy load for a young college sophomore. Still, I believed each of these tasks was important for several reasons: to earn needed money, to hone my speaking skills and to interact with the lives of precious people. But they left little time for the leisure and social activities that seemed to be such a large part of other students’ lives. And I was frustrated at my seeming loss.
One evening I was taking a stretch break from study, walking out into the night. Soon I began speaking prayers of complaint . . . a little like the lament psalms in the Bible. I wasn’t angry, really, just frustrated. They were “poor me” kinds of prayers. My walking took me into a nearby woods and, as I walked along by the light of the moon, my complaining prayers began to diminish and I became more and more quiet. Finally, I fell into total silence. A still, listening silence. It was then that God spoke, spoke out of the stillness and into my frustration.
You know how we are able to distinguish between human speakers by the quality of their voice, the spirit in their voice and, of course, the content of what is being said? It is much the same with the divine voice. The quality of God’s voice is one of drawing and encouraging. The spirit in God’s voice is all grace and mercy. And the content of what is being said is always consistent with what God has said before—we have a huge biblical witness upon which to test our leadings. Now, I am not speaking here of an outward voice that can be captured by electronic equipment. That no doubt is possible, as the Bible gives ample witness. But here I am speaking of an inward whisper, a deep speaking into the heart, an interior knowing.
“You are frustrated and sorry for yourself,” God seemed to be saying. “Sorry for yourself because you do not have all your desires satisfied. But if you will be with me you do not have to have all your desires satisfied. With me is ultimate and complete satisfaction. If you are genuinely with me you are in the best place possible.”
That was all. No promise to transform my life circumstances. No guarantee of wealth and prosperity and all my worldly desires. No pledge to change a single thing. And yet those words quietly dissipated my frustration and overcame my self-pity. I walked out of the woods with a fresh spring in my step. I had been addressed personally, intimately. The voice of the true Shepherd was altogether sufficient.
In the pages that follow we will seek to explore more fully what it means to experience the divine whisper for ourselves. How does God speak to us? What should we expect . . . or even hope for? Are there conditions of heart and mind that open us to God’s loving—and terrifying—voice? How can we develop an inward, prayer-filled listening? It is questions like these and more that we will explore.
To conclude each of the three major parts of this book I share an extended personal experience that I hope will illustrate and expand on what I have been sharing with you. I call these elements “Entering the Experience,” for I do hope that my story will encourage you to enter into your own experiences of meditative prayer.