The first practical thing Philip Cary encourages us not to do in his book Good News for Anxious Christians is to stop trying to listen to God's voice in our hearts. This may sound like a shocking thing to say. Cary desperately wants us to hear God's voice. But we need to know where we can hear it, and it is not in our hearts. Part of Cary's motivation for writing this book comes from his work as a professor of philosophy at a Christian college. He has seen firsthand how his students struggle to hear God speak, how many have been taught to enter into a time of quiet to listen to God speak to them in their hearts.
Often times when in solitude I listen to my heart, the experience is more like a raucous session of congress with the Speaker of the House banging the gavel and shouting "Order! Order!" than it is a time of peace beside a still mountain lake. Here's how Cary describes the experience of listening to our hearts:
[W]e have many different voices in our hearts, and some are better than others. Some in fact are pretty dumb – thoughtless and conventional, easily manipulated and willing to join whatever party is going on. Those are usually the loudest voices, trying to drown out the others . . . It's usually the quiet voices that are the most perceptive, because they come from a part of ourselves that's afraid to speak up at the party, but that knows what we really have to live with inside – knows how we really feel and how it hurts. This is where we often find the voice of our own integrity – a voice that's unsure of itself because it tells us about feelings we're not quite ready to admit we have, or thoughts that on some level we don't want to think about even though we need to. But the voice is there because it comes from the part of ourselves that the party can't drown out – the part that notices how our heart isn't quite in it (p.7)
For Cary listening to our hearts is incredibly important, but not because that is where we hear the voice of God. Listening to our hearts is important because it leads to self-knowledge. 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).
But the voices that we hear in our heart are to a large degree formed outside of our hearts. They may be the voices of parents, teachers, mentors and friends. They may be the voices of people who have caused us great harm and pain. They are the voices of the mass media which seeks to shape our tastes and desires. But for Cary the truth that the voices of our hearts are shaped by voices outside of ourselves is good news, because God speaks to us through the external words of Scripture. Cary writes:
A very different kind of spirituality comes to us from the revelation of God in holy Scripture. It frees us to develop our own thoughts and feelings, since we don't have to look for God within our hearts – which is where we are most vulnerable to self-deception and technologies of manipulation. Instead, we can find him in his faithful word. So once again we have doubly good news about self-knowledge and the knowledge of God. The Good news about self-knowledge is that it's okay for your feelings and thoughts to be your own, not the voice of God. For the good news about God is that he makes himself known the way a real person does, by speaking to us from outside our hearts. And precisely that external speaking, when we take it in by faith, gives a new shape to our hearts, conforming us to the image of his Son. That's how our thoughts and feelings and inner voices become a new thing, not merely a product of consumer culture . . . [T]he place to look for God's word is not in your heart, but in the gathering of God's people for worship, prayer, preaching and teaching" (p.14-15)
How does this perspective on hearing God's voice change sit with how you seek God's voice? Do you find Cary comforting or challenging? Click on the "comments" link below to share your thoughts as to how we seek God's voice.
No comments:
Post a Comment