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