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A couple of my readers recently sent a great question along these lines:
Jesus tells us that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:4). Personally, I’ve tried to establish that connection with God, and I keep trying to open up that two-way conversation, but so far His voice seems distant. Maybe my problem is that I’m talking too much and not listening enough. I’m not giving up — I’ll keep trying. The reason I’m writing is that I’m wondering if you could share your thoughts?
Funny you should ask this, because I just said to my bishop recently, “It seems like the Lord is quite silent these days.” But is He?
The Voice of Peace
What exactly did Jesus say?
I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know Me… He walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. (John 10:14, 4)
As a matter of basic discernment, how do you know when the interior voice in your thoughts is the Lord’s, your own, or the devil’s for that matter? Jesus said:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)
You will know when God is speaking to you (and we’ll get to how in a moment) because His word will impart a peace that this world cannot give. Even when He asks difficult things, there will still be a peace in His word that is a hallmark of His voice. If you don’t have peace about something, then wait, or simply turn the other way.
There is a beautiful passage in Proverbs that really fleshes this process of discernment out further.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely; In all your ways be mindful of Him, and He will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the LORD and turn away from evil… (Proverbs 3:5-7)
First of all, you need to have a basic faith in God [“For without faith, it is impossible to please him” (Heb 11:6)] — and many of us who call ourselves Christians really don’t have much faith when it comes down to it.
My sister died in a car accident when I was 19 (she was only 22). It didn’t shake my faith in God’s existence. I still believed He was there, that He was with us in that trial, that He was still the God of love, still my Savior… but I no longer trusted Him. Almost subconsciously, I decided that I needed to take life into my own hands. And so many of the decisions I made thereafter were often based on my own reasoning — trusting in my “own intelligence”, rather than listening for that “still small voice” of peace.[1]cf. 1 Kings 19:12-13 Oh, the troubles I often brought upon myself by simply getting ahead of God and making poor decisions.
It’s not that we should cease to use our intelligence; instead, we need to bring God into our reasoning, to “be mindful of Him” in all our ways without being afraid of what His will is. What does His Word say? What does the Church teach? What do others with experience have to say, or my spouse, my parents,[2]Proverbs 1:8: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and reject not your mother’s teaching.” or others who know me? This kind of humility is the beginning of wisdom: “Do not be wise in your own eyes” because…
When pride comes, disgrace comes; but with the humble is wisdom… (Proverbs 11:2)
The Catechism’s beautiful section on prayer asks,
…when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or “out of the depths” of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer; only when we humbly acknowledge that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2559
Thus:
Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak… (James 1:19)
The Voice of His Will
There is a certainty that God is speaking to you right now. And that is through His Will in the “duty of the moment.” And what is His Will?
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31)
Your neighbor is your spouse, your family, your community, your colleagues, etc. God’s voice is pretty clear in the duty of the moment: what I am called to do to serve right now. It may be changing a diaper, shovelling the snow, changing the car’s oil, doing the dishes. Just as the rest of creation is in constant obedience to the Creator — whether it’s the orbit of the planets, the change of seasons, or the migration of birds — so too, God’s voice has already spoken that we are called to order all things according to His Divine Will, according to the order of love.
Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…. The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love. —Mother Teresa’s Instructions to the M.C. Sisters, October 30th, 1981; from Come Be My Light, p. 34, Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C.
This Little Path of self-denial is the constant echo of God’s voice, beckoning you to pick up your cross and follow after Him.[3]Matt 16:24 But how many of us fail to recognize the Good Shepherd’s voice in the mundane?
If it had been your good pleasure, Lord, to ask one sole favor of us during our whole life time we would remain stunned by the request and doing your will this one time would be the event that determined our destiny. But because you put this great honor into our hands each day, each hour, each minute, we find it so normal that we become blasé and get bored with it. —Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl († 1964), from The Joy of Believing, Ralph Wright, o.s.b
The Voice of His Church
On matters of “faith and morals,” God has already spoken through His Son, Jesus, to the Apostles, as Our Lord Himself declared to them:
Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. (Luke 10:16)
It goes without saying, then, that obedience to the Magisterium of the Church is essential to hearing and living out the Word of God.
Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk exactly in the way I command you, so that you may prosper. (Jeremiah 7:23)
I have already addressed how God has spoken through the prophets, patriarchs, and apostles in my meditation called The Voice. But suffice it here to say that, if we reject the authoritative voice of Christ through His Church, then we will most certainly drown out His voice in a myriad other ways that He wants to speak into our lives. Hardness of heart was one of the greatest reasons the Israelites lost their way. Again, as Proverbs 3 says: “Fear the LORD and turn away from evil.”
Today, when you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. (Hebrews 3:15)
The Christian who, in striving to serve the Lord, still stumbles and falls from time to time is not whom I’m referring to. The fact that you recognize your sin and want to return to God is a sign that you are indeed hearing His voice, even if the struggle is long and bitter. It’s those who have dulled their consciences and prefer the darkness to light that are in trouble. They have not only tuned out God’s voice, but are often ready to silence it so that their conscience is not disturbed.
The Voice in Your Heart
All that said, what the reader is ultimately asking is how do I hear God personally within my heart? He does provide some good answers: we talk too much, don’t listen enough, or allow other competing voices (distractions) to take the upper hand. We can become busy-bodies — Marthas, rather than Marys — and fail to sit at the feet of Christ who desires to teach, guide, and heal us. The lack of a regular prayer life is not only one of the biggest reasons that a soul can miss hearing the voice of the Shepherd, but can even be the beginning of losing one’s faith. As one bishop told me, “I don’t know a single priest who left the priesthood who didn’t first stop praying.”
Whoever belongs to God hears the words of God… (John 8:47)
Prayer Slows the World Down. “Prayer is the living relationship” with God, says the Catechism.[4]CCC, n. 2565 And so we hear God by “folding the wings of the intellect”, as Servant of God Catherine Doherty used to say, and listening to His Word as much as we converse with Him. God may not speak to you in grand revelations. He may not say much more than simply what the duty of the moment requires, or a gentle word through the daily Mass readings, etc.. As Psalm 119 says,
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path. (verse 105)
Jesus said, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). In other words, when the time comes to turn down another intersection, even if for now it remains in the dark, if you have been walking faithfully, daily by the lamp of His word, you won’t miss the turnoff. Again, Proverbs 3 says, “In all your ways be mindful of Him, and He will make straight your paths.”
The rest is common sense in simply turning off other voices. Turn off your own voice by “casting all your anxieties upon Him because he cares for you.”[5]1 Peter 5:7 Turn off the voice of the Accuser who wants to interrupt your prayer time by bringing up your past failures. Make a simple act of contrition, trusting in God’s mercy, and then ignore that other voice. And finally, literally turn off the TV, computer, radio or your dopamine-delivering-device, so that it’s not a temptation and distraction.
God is speaking to you right now, in one way or another, even if it’s simply in the duty of the moment. Maybe the most important question is not so much if we are hearing God, but whether we are doing what He has already asked.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like. But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does. (James 1:23-25)
Related Reading
My Sheep Will Know My Voice in the Storm
The Sacrament of the Present Moment
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