*chuckle*

And how do you actually “hear” God’s voice?

I am more like the person who hears a million voices and don’t know which one, if any, belong to God. How do I know that the voice I am hearing isn’t an echo from another human being or my own inner critic or my own inner hedonist? How do I know that this “voice” isn’t just some chemical firing of my brain as it replays situations and comments and influences around me?

I’ve been asking these questions for about 40 years and am (finally!) coming to terms with the reality that there may be no answers. Accepting this has been difficult for me because my personality is more comfortable with the known than the unknown.

The thing which has been most difficult–actually damaging–is that, over and over again, churches and pastors and Christian leaders have taught that I CAN hear God’s voice. In fact, according to them, I SHOULD hear God’s voice. If I don’t, I must be sinful or deficient or not trying hard enough. When I ask HOW God’s voice can be heard and differentiated from these other things, no one can give me answers, but I am shamed for wanting the answers or for not being able to find my own way to them.

This shaming or humiliation makes it all the more difficult to continue to “try” to be a Christian. I define myself as a Christian, but I am no longer trying to fit others’ definitions of this term. This shaming for asking questions and seeking answers that work for individuals, explains (at least to my satisfaction) why so many people whose personalities are wired to want or need the known tangibles end up leaving the church and/or walking away from Christianity altogether.

If you go back and read the gospels carefully, you can see that Jesus didn’t give many direct or easy answers. He often replied to a question with a question. He spoke in parable and paradox. However, rather than model Christ, church leaders of North America seem to have divided into two camps–one spends endless hours parsing Scripture, preparing arguments, and engaging in theological and doctrinal debate and the other holds hands and sings Kumbayah and discourages any questions outside of what their sacred leaders have spoken. Neither is acceptable to me anymore. I understand why people are leaving this kind of Christianity in droves.

Those people might just stay (and I might just drop my guard against “church” a bit) if the North American God-gurus were more honest about NOT having the all the answers. Thanks, David, for being honest and for being a lot like Jesus in how you interact with the masses.

Wow! I feel a lot like Rip Van Winkle waking from my 20-year comment creating to find that the world has been transformed. I like the new look of your blog… clean and crisp and sort of “naked!”

Love this. I used to say I heard G-d’s voice, now I say I’m hard of hearing and I mostly try to read His lips. Recently I had a nudge in my heart to show grace to someone who I thought didn’t deserve it. I did. I got nothing in return, but the satisfaction of knowing I had somewhat followed a directive from G-d.

G-d is not as much fun as horoscope. Horoscope tells you what you want to hear: you will have good fortune, you will meet the one, you will be brilliant, great things are in store for you.

G-d is not a soothsayer. Face it. We don’t want to hear His voice. We want to hear about winning the loto.

If you are prompted to do something you really don’t want to do, and it costs you an awful lot (not necessarily in money, but in selflessness), then you are probably hearing from G-d.

God must have sent him a cane when he got old.

I loved this — couldn't help being reminded of this:

http://richardmcchurch.wordpress.com/2006/01/22...