But for now, if there’s anyone still in this comment thread, then may God be glorified by our search for truth on this and may we and anyone else be blessed as well.

I don’t know if I’m really all that confident, honestly. I’m learning to ask more questions than to assume whatever is told to me is true for what God has for me.

Much of my Evangelical (which I’m post- now) background has not at all been centered around hearing God speak to the individual, but rather seems more mystical in the fact that people just “know what to do” which may or may not be legitimately God speaking to them, but more of a “this is what I’m expected to do and how I’m expected to act”. So, I’m a bit new (2 years now) to hearing from God personally. I wish I had experienced it sooner, but I was one of those who said, “Yeah right!” when someone commented that “God told me…”

I would, personally, love someone in leadership to say, “Ya know… I just don’t know.” But add to it a, “Let’s walk this out together.” When iM says “wilderness”, sadly, there are times when it’s lonely except for me (black sheep), the wolves and the snakes.

I’ll admit, I have not read DKotS yet, but it’s been talked very highly about, so I’m adding it to my reading list.

My evangelical experience HAS been about “doing” rather than listening and enjoying the voice of God. The last congregation we were a part of started to introduce (some of the mission teams) “listening prayer” like it was something special. It IS special. But more like it had a special purpose and time. Folks were amazed at the stories told about the answers to that listening prayer, but nobody seemed to think it was available to all who believe. I do hope I am not coming across as dismissive… I was and am actually quite discouraged over the doubt. After all, Jesus said, “My sheep will hear my voice.” But we have forgotten…

I would not put myself in the charismatic bent (maybe I am… I don’t know… but there are a few charismatic traits that I’m still unfamiliar with, anyway), but I do acknowledge the reality of spiritual warfare in a very personal sense. I also do not “overplay” its role in my life because no weapon that’s fashioned against me will stand. And I already have the victory in Christ. But I need to remember regularly to bring the cross between me and others for grace and for the Kingdom of God.

I believe, ultimately, that tips, techniques, guidelines, formulae, and rules actually strip the relationship (any that we’re in, not just our relationships with God) of its intimacy and power. If God will give us 10 things to do and 10 things that he doesn’t want us to do… then we don’t need Him. In fact, I’m willing to bet there are some who, once given these two lists, won’t want Him. Relationships are disruptive. God might ask us to do something radical like start a new profession at the age of 36, take about a 50% pay cut, and go back to college to do it.

But, to seek like, we must die. Die to what we’re “sure” of. Die to what we “know”. And die to anything that doesn’t look like relationship with God. That’s a hard thing to do without fear.

Looking at Scripture, we have several examples (not exceptions ) of God speaking to people. Moses. Abram. Noah. Daniel. Jesus. And all of them had their lives turned upside down by listening to Him. By having a relationship with Him.

It’s like The Matrix (a perfect example of this). “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

And yes, I cry whenever I see and hear Morpheus say that to Neo.

The one thing that Morpheus DOES with Neo that seems to be missing from a portion of evangelicalism today is discipleship. I’m not talking about encouraging someone to pray, have quiet times, find a Bible Study, and join an accountability group or prayer partner group. I’m talking about, “Walk with me and I’ll show you how to really walk with Jesus.”

I’m WAAAAAY off-topic. Too much caffeine today. Please forgive me.

I wish I had your confidence when you say that “I don’t think that our actions or whatever else we might be having going on will cause God to be silent with us”.
I am not sure of that.

But I do think that there can be other things going on which are due to what we do, or don’t do which can cause us to experience silence for a season. I am not talking about people who have never heard from God, I am talking about people who believe that God speaks to us personally, believe that they have heard from Him in the past, and have an experience where they don’t hear from Him, at least for a season.

Why is that? I don’t have a complete answer, still less a systematic theology. What I do know is that the standard Evangelical/post Evangelical answer (just try harder) does nothing to help people in that season, and can do a great deal of harm.
I’ve heard a number of pastors and leaders run through some routine responses, but end up with an “I just don’t know”…first time that I have encountered this. I guess its kind of like lying in the hospital bed hearing the doctors discussing how rare your disease is, but not what they can do about it.

Other traditions have something to say about this, in the Catholic contemplative tradition there is the description of the dark night of the soul by St John of the Cross. You know when A type evangelicals start reading the Dark Night of the Soul that their own action orientated tradition has failed them. So there is this contemplative idea that God allows us to go through a time of silence as part of a spiritual refining process. What do we protestants make of that? Is that God keeping silent? How do you know that that is what is going on? And what do we do? St John seems to say that some people are in that for the rest of their earthly existence.

There is another idea, that at least some charismatics might suggest, that sometimes we don’t hear well because there is intense spiritual warfare. Its usually coupled with the idea that there is some specific spiritual dynamic, not always directly related to us. I’ve lived in San Francisco and its harder to hear there, so the idea resonates.
But how does it feel to be pawn in the battle? How do we avoid the danger of thinking we can fix this with some technique, and so twist ourselves into knots trying to figure it out.

It may seem like these occurrences are rare, I know that many Christians that I have encountered are content to dismiss them as exceptions and stick to their formula’s. But these are God’s people we are talking about, each one uniquely valuable to the Kingdom. What is the Kingdom losing if the church cannot or will not help people experiencing this silence?

I don’t think that our actions or whatever else we might be having going on will cause God to be silent with us. He did that once, when Jesus was on the cross crying out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”. The point is he’ll never do that again. a) requiring atoning sacrifice and b) turn his back on his children.

For me, I don’t hear from Him often enough. But then again, I don’t go to Him to hear from Him often enough. I have about 4 hours in the car per week to commute to my 2nd office twice in that week. I constantly have my iPod on with some sermon or some post-Evangelical radio show or something else where I’m driving and listening to audible stuff. Good stuff, but audible “man” stuff. So, I’ve been challenged by a friend to spend at least 30 minutes of those drives (first once a week), in silence, to listen. To “be still and know that I am God.” as the Scriptures tell.

And it’s hard. Really hard. I have a short (10 minute) prayer routine I’ve been doing first, just to help center my heart on hearing. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, it doesn’t. The point is that I don’t let the enemy get into the time and take me out of seeking God. I do not let him condemn me for “failing”. Because I don’t see it as failing. And that is a hard point to get to. Just like when I was a kid, sometimes my friends could play outside with me. Sometimes they couldn’t. And sometimes I had chores to do which made me want to play with them more.

I certainly didn’t meant to take you to task, but to point out how others might hear you.

I’ve also failed to be clear. I am not concerned solely with the idea that the only reason we don’t hear God is sin, I am also concerned about the idea that the only reason we don’t hear from God is because of something we are either doing or not doing.

Now I don’t hear you saying that. I hear you saying that one reason that we might not hear God is because we don’t expect to hear from Him, we consider our lives too trivial.

And I agree that can be a reason. Of course I think that there are other reasons too, and not all of them have to do with what we as individuals do or don’t do. This may not be an issue for some but for some of us we have been given the impression that its always about what we do or don’t do. And thats not just incorrect, its life destroying.

thank you for the conversation

It was thoughtful and certainly NOT meant to say, “if you don’t hear from God, you’re in sin.” I believe that, rightly or wrongly, I can hear God in my sin, too. After all, God speaks through the Holy Spirit, who convicts (not condemns) us of sin.

Not hearing from God isn’t, if I understand correctly – and in my own limited experience = the result of sin. It might be from not believing we GAN hear from him. I came to faith 13 years ago. Never believed I could hear from God and that people who claimed to hear from him were either a) crazy or b) headed for the nearest cult that would love bomb them enough to get them in the door.

I was wrong. I started hearing from Him back in 2007 (perhaps before that, but it was solidly 2007) while I was at a men’s retreat that actually included about 3 hours of silence during the weekend (4 total periods of silence) to go hear from God and how ot prepare for it.

forgive me, Windblown, and anyone else who took my tone to be one of condemnation and/or judgment.

and you responded “I’m not sure God is ever silent…
But, I think we’re not always tuning in to listen.”

Its hard to judge tone on the web but I hear you saying this slow and kind of thoughtful, and speaking with honesty from your own journey. So I’, assuming that it will come as a surprise to you how what you are saying might sound to others. Because the claim that its somehow always something that we are doing wrong which results in our missing it can sound like a major guilt trip, especially when it comes from a leader to people who are in immense pain, pain because they have begged God to know his His will, pain because they feel abandoned, feel that they alone in all the world do not get to hear from God.

One doesn’t need to construct a theology which denies that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God in order to have other explanations for silence; for Christians who believe that God is sovereign then it seems that He must be able to choose to be silent, or post charismatics like me there is the possibility of enemy action.

So insisting that an experience of silence from God is then guaranteed to create a double bind; because we know that we always miss perfection one way or another with God we can always find something that we didn’t do, or did do, or didn’t do right, and so we can always engage in endless contortions trying to get it right, and at the same time know no matter what we do does not work, indeed we have to acknowledge that what we (or most of us) do cannot by definition control God.
I don’t think thats a healthy place to be and that is what I hear Michael saying.
Because if our relationship with God is marked by an endless process of trying to hit the right formula with God, knowing all the time that we cannot then its not going to be life giving.

A former pastor use to lay this double bind on me, probably because he was under it himself. He’d quote “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” and then he claim that if you were in silence then by some kind of evangelical syllogism you were therefore not experiencing grace and therefore must be one of the proud. One day I looked up those verses (its an NT quote of the OT) and came to understand that the word used for humble in both Old and New Testament refers the afflicted, the suffering, and who is more afflicted than those who seek to hear from God and are met with silence? Job insists that its not about what he was doing wrong, and his friends insist that it must be. Job didn’t buy and neither do I.

I would say a person of the like may not be open to anyone saying anything to them. It can be quite powerful to say God told me to do this and that.

So it is up to us when we think God is urging us to do something to proceed with caution. I can only be responsible for myself.

If you are asking for my guidance I would say God doesn’t violate His own rules so if it goes against the Ten Commandments it isn’t God. Is it life giving? Is it something you want to do? Can you be honest and say, it’s something I want to do and I hope God want me to do it too. There is nothing wrong with that if if meets with the above.

Are you saying God wants you to do it to get your way? Be honest and look at the situation. Are you manipulating someone? Do you just have to? Or ‘they just have to’.

Just some ideas.