The Journey: Hearing the Voice of God - The Daily Journal of David Collins

This morning I had a break-of-dawn breakfast with a friend at the Pancake Parlour (strawberry crepes with ice cream - what a way to start the day!), and we talked about a lot of things. He's at a transition in his life (what's called an "inflection point") and looking to the Lord for his guidance, and so we chatted a fair bit about how the Lord guides. I'd like to share with you some of the insights that came out of our meeting, because his questions are common to many Christians today.

If you're interested in learning more about God's guidance and how it works in your life, I highly recommend a series of five lessons I wrote for the Online Bible College called "Learning to Hear God's Voice." You can download the lessons here:

Lesson 1 - A God Who Guides
Lesson 2 - A People of the Way
Lesson 3 - The Voice of the Shepherd
Lesson 4 - Principles of Guidance
Lesson 5 - Toward Maturity

Quoting from the first lesson, I wrote:

"The issue of guidance - hearing God's guiding voice and discovering his personal will for your life - is undoubtedly a popular subject. No other subject (save possibly for 'end time prophecy') attracts more interest from Christians."

And one of the reasons it is such a popular subject is that many Christians have what I call "guidance anxiety". This is because:

Most Christians have an admirable desire to know and obey God's personal will for their lives.
Most Christians are insecure in their understanding of God's will and uncertain of their ability to hear God's voice.

In the first lesson, I also quote from J. I. Packer's book, Knowing God:

"To many Christians, guidance is a chronic problem. Why? Not because they doubt that divine guidance is a fact, but because they are sure it is. They know that God can guide, and has promised to guide, every Christian believer. Books, and friends, and public speakers, tell them how guidance has worked in the lives of others. Their fear, therefore, is that they may miss the guidance which God provides through some fault of their own..."

Like my friend, I am also at an "inflection point" in my life (although for a different reason). Due to a health crisis, I'm needing to reassess priorities and the future. And so for this reason, like my friend, I too am seeking the Lord's guidance on some important issues (I'll share more about this later). So this post, I guess, is timely for me, and I hope it is for you too.

During my breakfast meeting, I brought out a number of important points.

Firstly, the majority of God's guidance is general, rather than specific. That is because the Bible has already been given to us in the form of God's general guidance with regard to all the major issues of "life and godliness". 2 Peter 1:3-4 tells us:

"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."

What Peter is saying is that God has already provided us with the complete framework for life, in the form of divine promises, together with the power to "participate in the divine nature" and to "escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." This general guidance is all we need for walking day by day with the Lord.

I'm not saying that we now don't need to hear from God on a daily basis, but rather that God's daily voice comes generally straight from his Word - right out of the general guidance he has provided for our lives. In other words, I don't need to get a specific word from God as to whether I should witness, or tell the truth, or flee from immorality. All of this has already been written down for me in God's Word.

Ah, but what about when I'm trying to decide which job to take, or which person to marry, or whether I should move house? This, my friend, falls under a different category of guidance - what I call "special guidance." It is something very specific for each individual's life, and differs from person to person. For example, when I was asking the Lord whether I should marry Elena or not, there was no specific verse in Scripture which was written for me, somewhere, saying: "Behold, David, I have given you a wife, and her name is Elena!" And yet I did seek God's guidance in this matter - in fact, so seriously did I want to know God's will in this matter that I fasted and prayed for seven days!

I've had some missionary friends, however, who have not been able to distinguish between the roles that general guidance and special guidance play in their lives. For them, "guidance anxiety" is taken to an extreme, to the point of praying whether they should go to the post office today or not, or whether to buy apples or oranges. Yet God never intended to "micro-manage" our lives like this. This kind of "micro-guidance" - where every decision, major or minor, falls under the category of special guidance - simply is not part of God's plan.

As you look through Scripture, you find that God does speak specifically into people's lives, but not as often as you might think. Even in the Book of Acts, we find that, although the apostles experience special guidance from the Lord at key junctures of their ministry, the rest of the time they are simply moving forward in the momentum of either God's general guidance (e.g. Matthew 28:18-20), or in an ongoing obedience to the special guidance that God had already brought (e.g. Acts 13:1-14,49-51). But even though the apostles mostly made decisions based on the general guidance of the Lord, there were also times when God intervened with special guidance, changing their direction at critical "inflection points" in their ministry (see Acts 16:6-10).

As Dallas Willard points out in his book, Hearing God:

"Extreme preoccupation with knowing the will of God 'for me' may only indicate, contrary to what is often thought, an over-concern with myself, not a Christ-like interest in the well-being of others or the glory of God."

And as I point out in "Lesson 5 - Toward Maturity":

"Too many Christians view God's guidance as either a success-guarantee technique or as a pain-avoidance scheme. They are either focused on worldly success or are anxious about the future and want assurance that God will guide them. But whether focused on pleasure or anxiety - on success-guarantee or risk-avoidance - these motives are self-centered."

Many Christians seek God's continual hands-on guidance due to a basic spiritual immaturity. Think about it for a moment. If we see a parent continually looking over their twelve-year-old child's shoulder, micro-managing every move and micro-guiding every decision, we would be concerned for the child. And if that child becomes an adult and still needs to call his parents to make even the most minor decisions in his life, we would say that the son is immature and emotionally stunted.

As one who is in pastoral leadership, I've also witnessed pastors who have encouraged too strong a bond of dependence between the pastor and his flock, even to the point where a church member feels inadequate to make a major decision without the pastor's stamp of approval. This strokes the pastor's ego (it's a great feeling to have people dependant on your wisdom and your "direct line" with God), but what it produces is spiritually stunted Christians who are locked into co-dependence with the church leadership. God's plan was never that pastoral leadership should "lord it over" the flock (1 Peter 5:2-4; Luke 22:24-26), but rather to help the flock hear the voice of the Great Shepherd themselves (John 10:27).

In the matter of divine guidance, God plays by the same rules (see "Lesson 5 - Toward Maturity" for a further biblical exploration of this matter). Have you ever wondered why God doesn't print his guidance in flaming letters on the night sky? Have you ever said to God, "Why don't you just speak audibly to me? Just a clear yes or no!"? The reason why God deliberately doesn't micro-manage your life is that his plan is for you to grow into a mature son or daughter, one who knows his ways and who has internalised his values.

Having said that, there is no doubt that God does guide us. He is the "good shepherd" who leads his sheep (John 10:1-5; Psalm 23:1-4). And Romans 8:14 tells us that "those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." But he purposely restricts his special guidance in such a way as to help us make wise decisions, based on his general guidance.

In fact, I believe that God wants us to seek him for his wisdom more than for his guidance. James 1:5 says:

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

As I was sharing these things with my friend this morning, he made this comment: "I guess what matters most is that, at the end, the Lord says to us: 'Well done, good and faithful servant..." At that point, I asked my friend, "Do you know the context of that statement - which parable Jesus was telling?" My friend couldn't place it, so I told him it was the parable of the talents (read it in Matthew 25:14-30). Then I said:

The context of that statement - "Well done, good and faithful servant" - was that three of the king's servants had each been given a large amount of money. The king didn't micro-manage his servants, telling them explicitly how to invest and get good returns on their money. He simply gave them stewardship of the resources with general instructions.

The first two servants invested their money and doubled the return, to which the king's response was, "Well done..." The third servant, however, buried his money, probably thinking that at least that way he wouldn't lose it, and presented it, unused, upon the king's return. To this, the king's response was a reprimand and punishment. In the same way, God has given us resources. He also gives general guidance, with occasional special guidance, but he expects us to learn how to use what God has given us in the wisdom he provides.

At this point, my friend sat back and I could see, almost literally, the light turn on in his eyes. "Wow!" he said, and after repeating that word a few times, he announced: "Now I know what I'm supposed to do."

I hadn't guided him with special guidance, just the general guidance of the principles of God's Word. But the Lord himself had "clued" my friend in on what he was to do, not by printing that guidance in fiery letters on the sky, but through the general principles of Scripture. That, together with the "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit's conviction, brought the clarity needed for his situation.

I too am waiting on the Lord for a decision I need to make regarding my chemotherapy. I'm asking for the clarity of his wisdom for this specific situation. Of course, the Bible doesn't speak about this situation specifically - in fact, the word "chemotherapy" doesn't even come up once in Scripture! But I'm wanting more than for God just to give me a "yes or no" point of guidance for my situation; I'm asking him to internalise the values of his wisdom in my heart. Like Moses, I'm wanting the Lord to teach me his ways, so that I may walk in his paths today, this week, and the months to come. Like Moses in Exodus 33:13, my prayer is: