Listening to God

     This begins a series of blog posts focusing on our listening to God.  But to get to that point, we first need to set the stage.
     The Bible everywhere affirms that Christians worship a God who communicates.  Everyone has either used or thought of using the sarcastic remark "So, you think you have a hotline to God!"  Or maybe "So God talks to you, huh?"  There are even questions in the best known psychological exam which ask whether a person thinks they hear from God.  Of course, if they mark the answer as "Yes, I do" the little red flag goes up.  The world does not believe in a God who communicates to humans.  But the Bible teaches that God is everywhere and always communicating to human beings, precisely because it is his nature to do so.
     Some 9 times in Genesis 1 alone, God speaks.  More than that, when he speaks, when he expresses himself, things happen in direct response.  The whole creation story, as told in Genesis 1 is about the world being an example of God's self-expressive creativity.  God is self-expressive.
     More than that, in Genesis 1 God intends for humans to be his image.  Whatever that means, and theologians still disagree about what it means, it is clear that an image is representative.  God means to communicate who he is by placing his image on the earth in the form of humanity.  If anybody else is looking, they were supposed to be able to look at humanity and discover something important about God.  This image is, by common consent among believers, defaced.  To what extent is also a matter of debate.  But the vast majority of believers in all times and places have concluded that however badly the image is defaced, it still communicates something about God.  God chooses to express himself through his image--human beings.
     Everywhere you look in the Old Testament, God is speaking to people who will take the risk to trust him.  Sometimes, as with Abraham, he does it face to face, by taking the temporary form of a human.  Other times, as with Moses, he speaks from a bush, or out of cloud, smoke or fire.  His very finger carves the stones upon which the law is found, which law is itself an expression of God's own heart and will.  Sometimes, as with Joshua, he appears and speaks as a messenger angel.  And sometimes, as with David and the prophets, his voice comes in less well defined ways.  But anywhere you look in the Old Testament, God is communicating.
     When we open the New Testament, this point is made with greater emphasis and power.  Jesus is said to be the very Word of God.  Hebrews tells us that God spoke to the fathers of old in a variety of ways, but now, at this time, he speaks by means of his Son, who is supreme above all other beings.  St. Paul uses similar language as the Old Testament when he calls Jesus the eikon of the invisible God--the image of the invisible God (Col. 1.15).
     What is the meaning of all this?  Just what I have already suggested. Our God is a God who communicates.  It is what he is--a communicating God. And his supreme effort at communication was aimed at humans and was put forward as a human.  What can this mean but that God wants to communicate to humans?  Indeed, Jesus, in John's Gospel is constantly telling those who will listen that he has a message from his Father.  That he only communicates what his Father tells him to say and he only does what his Father tells him to do.  And yet, we see in Jesus the person who is most free and most able to be authentically himself.  He cannot help being God's personal communication to humanity.
     That God wants to speak to us is embedded in the heart of the Scriptures.  That he has done everything necessary to be heard, and heard clearly, seems obvious.  Does he still mean to communicate?  Has he things to say today, to us, right now?  Does he intend to speak into our lives as he did once into the lives of those who lived so long ago?  In the next blog I hope to demonstrate that he not only means to do so, but that he has equipped every believer with everything they need to hear the voice of God, if they only want to and will make it a priority in their lives.