Book Review: "Hearing God"

[JimB]

Hearing God
Dallas Willard
(IVPress, 228pgs, $15p)​

One of my earliest difficulties with Christians was their uncanny ability to “hear God.” That sounded eerie to me—I wondered if these people really heard things that go bump in the night. For a while I was rather cynical about believers who would say that God had “told” them this or that or that God had given them a “word” for me. In my experience, many—if not most—of these “words from God”, though given by sincere well-meaning people, just did not pan out. Over the years, though, I grew to understand what they meant and some of these “words” proved startlingly accurate. Spooky. Spookier still, I began to “hear” God myself.

A few years ago one of America’s leading evangelical theologians weighed in on the subject. In Christian circles, to borrow an E.F. Hutton blurb, when Dallas Willard speaks people listen. And he has spoken on this subject in his book, “Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God,” first published in 1984 as “In Search of Guidance,” and now reprinted by demand. In this volume he lays out a needed and balanced view of a God who not only listens to his children but speaks to them as well. The problem is not that God is voiceless but that we simply do not listen to his voice and that is because we don’t know how to listen.

Dr. Willard argues that God, in fact, speaks to us on a regular basis. He is in “continual conversation” with us. The Almighty is far from the stern and silent taskmaster some envision him to be but rather is a loving and caring Father who is quite willing to talk to his children, more so than any good earthly father would. From scripture, Willard lists six ways God “speaks” to men. They are: a phenomena plus a voice; a supernatural messenger or angel; dreams and visions; an audible voice; a human intermediary (prophet); and the human spirit (the “still small voice”). Granted, the first five are spectacular and so, naturally, get the most attention but it is usually the last one that God uses. There is a reason for this: the “spectacular”, Willard says, is often the least mature because “children love the spectacular and show themselves as children by actively seeking it out, running heedlessly after it.” It is learning to recognize the quiet inner urgings, the still small voice, that we most often “hear God.” It is the childish among us that require more flamboyant methods, signs and wonders.

But why doesn’t God “just come out and say it,” tell us plainly and openly what he wants? There’s a good reason for that, too. “Obscurity serves us,” writes Willard. Seeking understanding builds in us both wonder and trust. Life would lose its meaning if we knew everything right from the start, if there was nothing left to discover. In fact, sometimes we do not know that God spoke to us except in hindsight, and then we are filled with wonder and grasp the fact that we can, indeed, trust him in the future.

In these and other ways Dr. Willard offers a bright world of insight into an ordinary occurrence that seems so extraordinary to many of us—hearing God.

 

[the.Sheepdog]

Thank you Pastor Jim. That sounds like a book worth getting.

 

[Glenda]

Sounds like a book worth reading..

I'm reading one right now.. Dialogue with God by Mark & Patti Virkler.. that is very interesting..

Thanks.. I'll put this one on my list..

 

[oneshot012]

I had to read this for my Spiritual Formation class and it was a fantastic read. I honestly say it was one of the books that I did not sell from school.

 

[whatfor]

Will have to have look for this one.