A Hunger to Hear

Today I was posting one of the parts to the series, Learning to Hear the Voice of God. When Lorraine had finished proof reading the article she said to me, “I think you should continue on this series as long as you have anything to write.”

As long as I have anything to write? Really?

I had intended to cap the series with six parts. So I took her advice. She’s hears the Lord well, but if not, it’s still a good idea to take her advice. If Lorraine likes something I do, then I like to keep doing it, like a little boy showing off . . . you know. I like the attention.

(Well, we had a little fun with that one, didn’t we?)

Anyway, later in the day an idea came to me on the series and I realized that, yes, I have more material on the subject.

I recall something that a good friend said, and well, I think it must be explored.

A few weeks ago I connected with a friend of many years, that I had lost track of for a while. I gave him a call and brought him up to speed with my recent marriage to Lorraine. He then asked, “Hey, could you come and see us?”

Well, sure, why not?

So he and his wife met with us in Wisconsin and they especially wanted to know the story of how God supernaturally brought Lorraine and I together . . . when I was not intending to get married again.

Relating the story, I included the footnote,

“God speaks to you when you least expect it.”

My friend agreed. “It’s true,” he said. “God speaks to you when you least expect it.”

I was telling the part of the story how one day I was looking into my closet, trying to choose a shirt and God said to me, “George, you need a woman.”

Lorraine, being witty at my expense, as she often is, said, “Maybe that’s why God knew George needed a woman, because He saw what was in his closet.” The remark drew a burst of laughter, after which I explained to them. “Well, when we got married she threw half of my clothes away,” which drew more laughter.

So what does the story have to do with hearing the voice of God?

My friend went on to elaborate. He said that he had always heard the voice of God as far back as he could remember.

So what predicated that? Why can a young boy hear the voice of God?

Remember Samuel? At the age of eleven, God spoke to him in the night. In his case, it was an audible voice, because he kept going in to Eli, thinking Eli had called him. Eli, sensing that God was speaking to the boy, told him that when it happened again, Samuel should say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3).”

So why did Samuel, a boy of eleven, hear the voice of God? In his case, the main reason was that his mother, Hannah, had dedicated him to the Lord. Samuel lived with the priest, Eli.

But why does a young boy, as in the case of my friend, hear the voice of the Lord?

Sometimes in a young child there is a yearning for God from a very early age, and a high sensitivity to His voice.

My earliest memory of God is when I was about five years old. I was standing in the field by the pump house while my mother was watering the cows, and I remember I just felt like God was there. I had the sense that He had a purpose for my life, that His hand was upon me.

Remember, we are all born with what the philosopher, Pascal, called the “God shaped hole.” In other words, we are three parts, body, soul and spirit. Our spirit is the innermost part, invisible, of course. It is the eternal part that lives on forever, either in heaven or hell. It is the part the Bible sometimes calls the “inner man,” and is made to communicate with God. We are all made that way, but we also have a will, the power to choose.

The will is a mystery. Through the will, which has the power to choose, why do some people, even small children, choose to hunger for God and others choose to push Him away?

lt is indeed a mystery I can’t explain. Only God can fully understand the inward workings of the creature He has created.

So is there a pull between the inner man of the human being and God the creator? Most definitely!

Psalms 42:7 NASB says,

“Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls; all your waves and billows have gone over me.”

There is a deep in the spirit of a man or woman that can only be satisfied by the deep that is in God. God created the relationship to be so.

There was a time when I was working on the Reach For More event to take place in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and I was experiencing severe exhaustion.

On a particular Saturday the fatigue caught up to me and I went upstairs to lay down for a bit. As I was lying there, I experienced the presence of God rolling over me in waves. I was so refreshed lying there in His presence that I didn’t dare move for fear I would disturb the presence and He would leave. His sweet presence rolled over me in waves for about two hours.

Charles Finney, sometimes referred to as America’s most successful evangelist, tells of a time when he went into the woods to seek God. Finney was a lawyer with a very keen mind. He had sat in on church meetings for some time and concluded that the people’s prayers were not being answered because they didn’t believe what they were praying for.

After an extended time of examining Christianity, he decided he would go into the woods, seek God, and obtain salvation. After crying out to God all day with nothing happening, he finally gave up in a condition of despair, concluding that there was nothing he could do to be saved. When he came to this realization, God came to him. He says that waves and waves of the heavy, thick love of God rolled over him until he feared he might die.

Finney went on to become an evangelist. His meetings in upstate New York started a revival in which thousands came to Christ and it changed that whole area of the country.

Even a small child can sense God and can hear His voice. It is  perhaps the process of living in a fallen world that eventually drowns out the voice of God, if we let it.

There is no doubt that God pursues us. In the mid 1800’s, the English poet, Francis Thompson, wrote The Hound of Heaven. In this 182-line poem, he portrays God as the hound of heaven who continually pursues us. If God pursues us, then it is our part to not run from Him, but rather to turn and embrace Him. As we turn to Him, we at the same time turn our back on the noise of the world. In so doing we put ourselves in a position to learn to hear His voice.

Check in next week for the next episode of Learning to Hear the Voice of God, posted right here!

This photograph was designed and taken by Lorraine