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What if I haven’t been listening… to God?

My question reveals my belief that God “speaks.”

Does that mean God speaks audibly? Maybe, but not exclusively. God DOES speak audibly in Scripture – at Jesus’ baptism, for instance. On a handful of occasions, I’ve “heard” God speak so clearly, so unmistakably, so directly, so forcefully, God might have spoken audibly. I’m honestly not sure. It didn’t really matter – the message came through LOUD and CLEAR!

Much more often, I sense God speaking in a “still, small voice.” A gentle whisper, if you will.

Does God speak with words? Sometimes. I’ve definitely received words, entire sentences, and even participated in divine dialogues – or, at least, I believe I have.  Could I have been talking to myself? Possibly. I chose to receive such messages with enough faith to believe God may have spoken and enough humility to know I may be out of my mind.

Sometimes God also “speaks” with hints, hunches, leadings, nudges.  I’ve described my call to ministry as both an unexpected thought that popped into my head and a “leading,” like having a rope tied around my guts, pulling me in a direction I hadn’t planned to go.

When I say that God speaks, I don’t necessarily mean the way humans speak to one another.  Yes, I believe God speaks with words. Perhaps a better word than “speaks” is “communicates.” I believe God communicates in every conceivable and inconceivable way; the lyrics of a song, a line of poetry, a feeling that arises unexpectantly, the awareness of a “presence,” a comment from a friend, a moment in nature, a “sign.” Something divine is communicated, with or without words.

But what if we’re not listening?

By listening, I mean all of the ways we pay attention to God, or not. Attentiveness. Mindfulness. Awareness. Awakefulness. Jesus talked about having eyes to see and ears to hear, implying some do and some don’t.

As I said, I mostly experience God’s voice as a whisper. But we live in a noisy world; lawnmowers, ringing phones, traffic, televisions, stereos, endless chatter, etc. And beyond the sonic noise, there’s the constant barrage of bad news, political rhetoric, advertiser’s pitches, other’s opinions, social media posts, criticisms, not to mention the internal noise of insecurities, worries, self-recrimination, planning, ruminating, and the never-ending-self-imposed pressure to “measure up,” all endless rattling around in our minds.

What if the external and internal noise is just TOO loud?

And what if we aren’t good listeners?

And what if we’re too distracted to listen to God?

And what if we’re too busy for patient, attentive, spiritual listening?

And what if our personal biases and agendas act as filters, blocking out God’s messages that don’t fit into our preconceived, predetermined, prepackaged categories for what God would or wouldn’t say?

And what if we are listening, but only for the answers we want, while God is communicating something else entirely? Afterall, who said I get to dictate or determine the direction of the conversation?

I’m currently reading Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark, by James K.A. Smith. Smith reminds his readers that listening is preceded by silence, free of exterior distraction and taming the interior chatter.  He calls it “mystical silence,” writing, “The mystic is not silent to simply avoid saying the wrong thing… Silence is not the absence of sound but the presence of possibility… more like a womb or a field – a generative, fruitful space that, somehow, yields a wisdom beyond knowledge, an awareness that is not bounded by the parameters of logic.”

I wonder if I’ve been listening?

Actually, I KNOW I’ve listened. But have I really listened or just demanded an answer to my endless barrage of preformulated questions/demands.

I’m a pastor, and I spend an awful lot of time and mental energy wrestling with church finances, deferred maintenance on church property, staffing challenges, declining attendance, unfruitful programs, volunteer and leadership recruitment, community needs, the growing disinterest in traditional church programming, institutional angst, denominational demands – just to name a few. After thirty-plus years of professional ministry, a personal challenge I’ve never overcome is conflating my personal spirituality and my ministry responsibilities. Inevitably, my experience of God is too often wrapped-up in what I do as a pastor, versus who I am as God’s child. And my spiritual life is more-often-than-not consumed by my latest ministry concern, rather than the state of my own soul.

Yes, I’ve been listening for answers to my concerns. What if God wants to talk about something else?  What if God has thoughts on other matters? What if God wants to talk about me? Or, what if God likes silence too, and just wants to hang out?

What if God simply wants me to tune into the music of the universe, constantly playing all around me?  In the words of Evelyn Underhill, “So many Christians are like deaf people at a concert. They study the program carefully, believe every statement made in it, speak respectfully of the quality of the music, but only really hear a phrase now and again. So they have no notion at all of the mighty symphony which fills the universe, to which our lives are destined to make their tiny contribution, and which is the self-expression of the Eternal God.”

Yes, I’ve been listening – sort of.  Have embraced the silence necessary to really listen? Have I been paying attention? Maybe my straining for the answers I want are straining out the message I most need to hear.

James K.A. Smith suggests the silence and listening I need as a “…stillness in which one dwells and waits, expectant,” saying, “over time, you become attuned to your awareness itself, the deeper silence of your interior life. You begin to attend to the aspects of yourself that have remained hidden, unobserved. And when you begin to plumb this resonant interiority, you might begin to notice that it resounds with a music you already seem to know, but sung by another.”

I want more of that.