One of the most difficult questions we face is "How do I hear God speak? How do I allow my life to be guided by God's purpose?" So often in our culture we are told to listen for the voice of God within our hearts. But as Philip Cary points out in his book Good News for Anxious Christians, our hearts are filled with so many different voices that we just can't figure out which voice belongs to God. But there is good news for us: God does indeed speak to us, through the words of Scripture. It is through this external word that God speaks to us. And there is even more good news. In Cary's words, "The voices in your heart don't have to be God's voice to be worth listening to. They're not infallible, but they are often perceptive, telling you a lot of things you need to know" (p.7).
When it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit, we are often encouraged to see our intuitions as the Spirit moving within us. Some see intuition – those flashes of insight or gut feelings where we "just know," even though we can't explain how, to be the work of the Holy Spirit. But the problem is our intuitions can be wrong. A college classmate of mine told me this story about how his parents met. His parents went to college together and when his mother caught his father's eye he just knew this was the woman he was supposed to spend his life with, and indeed they did marry. The problem arose when several years into their marriage he had this same intuition about another woman. He couldn't be right both times, and I understand his wife set him straight about how much to trust his intuition.
But just because intuitions are not the Holy Spirit speaking to us does not mean they are not valuable. As with listening to the voices within our hearts, it is good to listen to our intuitions, even if they are not always right. Cary describes intuition as skilled insight. A trained musician can "get" a piece of music in a way an untrained musician can't. On the basketball court Michael Jordan could make a decision to pass or shoot based on intuition, without having to spend valuable time analyzing what was going on. A skilled musician or ballplayer has spent so much time at their craft that they perceive music or the actions on the ball field in a different way; all their training has helped hone their perceptions so they can act accurately without having to analyze the situation first. Intuitions may not be the voice of the Holy Spirit, but they are still worth listening to.
If intuitions are not the same as the work of the Holy Spirit, then how does the Holy Spirit work in our hearts? Cary writes:
Intuitions are like all the other voices in our hearts: they're our own voices, not God's, but that doesn't mean we should ignore them. Nor does it mean they have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit does work in our hearts, even though our hearts and all the voices in them are our own. They remain our own hearts, our own thoughts and feelings, even while God is at work in them. That is the deep and joyful mystery here, and the good news.
Think of another kind of habit in the heart, which the Bible and the Christian theological tradition call "virtue." Like a skill in sports and in the arts, virtue is an intelligent habit that shapes our hearts – not only how we act and do things, but how we feel and perceive and think. Hence one of the old words for discipleship is Christian formation, meaning the way that Christian virtues give form and shape to the heart. . .
Take kindness, for example. A kind person looks at the world differently than a cruel or indifferent person. A kind person sees people differently – she will notice when you are hurting, for instance, even when others don't. So kindness is a form of perception in addition to everything else: a form of feeling, a readiness to be moved to compassion, and a willingness to do what needs to be done (p. 25-26).
For Cary intuitions of kindness or generosity or self control are not the direct work of the Holy Spirit, but signs of the Spirit's work in our hearts. The Holy Spirit works through the creation of virtues because the goal of such virtues is not merely to make us more skilled, but to make us better persons who conform more closely to the character of Christ. Commenting on the Holy Spirit working through the formation of virtue, Cary writs:
When the Spirit is at work in this way, our hearts are different. It's not that the Spirit does it all for us, but rather we are different inside because of the Spirit's work – our hearts get into better shape than they could have by their own efforts alone. But our efforts are always part of it, because the Spirit works on our hearts by working with us, strengthening and helping our efforts, not replacing them. For the point of the Spirit's work is not to eliminate our hearts, but to change them, to reshape them in the image of Christ (p. 28).
One of the things I appreciate most about Cary is the way he reminds me that my humanity is not a barrier to knowing and being in relationship with God. Sin certainly is, but sin and humanity are not the same thing. God does not want us to parrot the party line, nor does God wish to engage in some kind of thought control along the lines of George Orwell's 1984. God wants to be in true relationship with us, and wants us to be fully and joyfully engaged with us. Our human thoughts, feelings, desires and intuitions are as much a part of our relationship with God as they are a part of our relationship with other people. Just as we cannot be in a full relationship with others if we always hide or mask our own unique voice, so we cannot be in a relationship with God if we do not speak to God in our own unique and human voice.
What virtues do you wish to develop? How have you addressed God in your own human voice? Feel free to respond to this post by clicking the "comments" link below.
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