Hearing God (Chapter 3)

In this chapter, Willard explains what a fully expressed life of hearing from God looks like, and also debunks common misperceptions people have about hearing from God.  The Christian life is about more than just blind faith- faith that holds on despite silence from God.  It is about more than merely feeling or sensing the presence of God.  Rather, the Christian life is only fully enjoyed when the Christian is able to engage in personal conversation with God.  Of course this doesn't mean that blind faith or sensing God's presence is unimportant; rather, it means that our ultimate goal as Christians is a conversational relationship with God, and that we should not be satisfied to stop before attaining this state.  I must confess that blind faith is something I've practiced often, and something that I've regarded as an essential part of my spiritual formation.  However, I now know that I shouldn't merely stop at a blind faith in Jesus, but try to use that as a springboard to develop a more intimate relationship with Him so that my faith won't be "blind" anymore.

Willard also debunks common misconceptions about hearing from God, such as:

1) thinking that God has a guidance for every single minute detail of your life

2) thinking that the Bible contains everything that God has to tell you

3) thinking that everything that happens is the will of God

It really relieves me that the above misconceptions are not sound doctrines, because if any one of these theories were true, then the Christian life would become a lot less fulfilling.  It is good to know that God allows us to make much of the decisions in our lives in the hope that we will conform our lives to His will without Him having to tell us explicitly what to do at every turn, and also that there are such things as good or bad decisions, even if God can use even our mistakes (which was outside His original will for us) for His glory in the end.  Here's a little gem of a quote that really caught my eye:

"I believe in miracle, but not too much miracle, for too much miracle would weaken us, make us dependent on miracle instead of our obedience to natural law.  Just enough miracle to let us know He is there, but not too much, lest we depend on it when we should depend on our own initiative and on His orderly processes for our development." -- E. Stanley Jones

 

Hearing God (Chapters 1 and 2)

Hey Phil, thanks for initiating the book reading- I pray that God will use this too for his glory.  For one thing, it does encourage me to read, which sometimes is hard to do by yourself.  Anyways, I read Hearing God by Dallas Willard and here are my thoughts on the first two chapters:

Chapter 1: "A Paradox About Hearing God"

Dallas Willard lays the groundwork for his book by explaining a paradox.  As Christians, we read in the Bible stories about people who heard God's voice, and indeed, as Christians, we should be constantly conversing with God- what happened to Moses, Abraham, and Jesus should be happening to all Christians every day since the same Spirit who spoke to these prophets of old reside in the heart of all genuine Christians.  Yet, paradoxically, many Christians don't understand how to listen to God, and even if they did, they misinterpret what God is saying to them.  The chapter reminded me that I must have a grand vision of the Christian life - that as Christians, we are called to be God's friends and to be in constant conversation with Him, just like the characters in the Bible.  Giving up hope of having such intimacy with God would be tantamount to giving up on Christianity- it's either all or nothing.

Chapter 2: Guidelines for Hearing God"

Willard outlines a general framework of viewing conversations with God (he'll get into specifics in later chapters):

1) Listening to God is not an independent act in and of itself, but must be viewed in context of a loving relationship with Him.  Conversation with God is just a small part of being in communion with Him.

2) We must assume that the same type of conversational relationship that Biblical charactes had with God can also be enjoyed by Christians even today.

I was particularly struck by Willard's insistence that if we don't first have communion with God by living a lifestyle in accordance with His will, we cannot hope to communicate with Him because we will have no context by which to understand His voice.  It's kind of like trying to talk with a stranger from a foreign country- if you haven't spent time in his culture and country, you won't really be able to understand what he is saying.  The only reason why God wishes to talk with us is to form a loving relationship with us, and not to force us to do what He wants, or even allow us to use Him to control our own future. For that reason, if we ask God to speak to us out of motives other than wanting to please Him out of love, God will not speak to us, or at least we won't be able to understand what He is saying. 

Book Summaries

We can post our thoughts on the first two chapters of our respective blogs here.