Finding God's Life For My WillSample

Can it really be as simple as this verse says? To hear the voice of God and to follow where it leads? Isn’t that what we’re all after? Who wouldn’t turn if they heard God’s voice over their shoulder? Imagine the Almighty echoing down the halls of your mind like a high school loudspeaker. If we heard God talking, of course we’d respond. The problem is we seldom know whose voice it is we’re hearing. It doesn’t seem as if there’s ever just one, does it? Our hearts speak. Our minds speak. Regret screams. Old shame shouts. Our bodies groan. The Spirit whispers. The Devil plays our strings. In the midst of all the noise, how can we possibly know if it’s the voice of the Divine we’re following or just our own desires?

Some translations of this verse in Isaiah say, “You will hear a voice right behind you.” This helps immensely. I love the image. What if rather than trying to send calls on a long-range radio, God is hailing us on a walkie-talkie? What if He is perfectly content with the static when we wander too far from His side? What if we were never meant to know the whole plan? Would we be able to take the one step in front of us while trusting He’ll speak to the present silence for the next? What if God doesn’t want to give us answers because He wants to give us His presence?

I heard a story once of a man who traveled to India to have Mother Teresa pray for him to discover God’s plan for his life. She said no. He insisted. She responded flatly, “No, I will not do that. I will pray you trust God.” I love Mother Teresa’s response, and I guess I hate it at the same time. As much as I want to say I trust God, I’d rather feel sure and competent about my future. But that’s just it. No one knows the future. And if faith and trust are God’s true goals for our lives, then it would make sense He’d have to keep us in the dark on some things in order to cultivate other things inside us. 

You have to have some fear before you can take courage. Uncertainty precedes faith, and doubt must take hold before we can exude trust. Trust is what grows in our hearts when we give our doubts over to the love of God. I guess you could call trust the ability to hear God singing Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time” over your life:

If you fall I will catch you—I’ll be waiting

Time after time

Trust is believing your future is wrapped in the love of God, and if that’s the case, then we can trust-fall into wherever God leads. I want to hear His melody over me so loud that all other voices learn their proper harmony to His song. But that takes practice. It takes leaning in every second of every day. Each time we feel He’s speaking, and we willingly turn away, His voice grows a little fainter against the volume of our well-composed plans. I want to grow in my ability to hear His voice, and I want you to hear Him too. And not just a voice that’s always guiding you, but a voice that’s always changing you. I’m done with anything less.