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Listening with Your Heart

God doesn’t speak to me with a voice to make audio needles move, but there are times when I’ve sensed something down deep, almost like a tuning fork has just been pinged in my soul. It’s not just one of those “I know because I know” things either. I think we can triangulate on the unmistakable tugs of God’s voice because we know other things about His character and nature. For instance, we know God loves us and how right forgiveness feels. We also know some truths about the world, like the love we have in our family and how we’ve always liked rainy days and cheeseburgers, that sort of stuff. From there, we can get a sense of how God has wired us and use a combination of our hearts and His truths to move ourselves in a certain direction.

So rather than spending time wondering why I don’t hear audible voices, I just try to listen harder with my heart, and I’ve realized a couple of things that seem kind of obvious now. God doesn’t talk to me in an audible voice because God isn’t a human being; He’s God. That makes sense to me, because human beings are limited and God isn’t limited at all. He can communicate to us in any way He wants to anytime He wants to.

I haven’t seen a combination of tree limbs that looked like John the Baptist or a cloud formation resembling Jesus. Honestly, they just look like branches and clouds to me. But I do see the beauty in them and the beauty that’s everywhere, that God made for me and you. I especially see evidence of God in other people’s lives. What’s beautiful about them always looks an awful lot like God to me. I wonder if the people listening for voices or looking for cloud shapes miss the whisper of God’s creation, somehow thinking it’s a lesser form of communication, like a text message rather than a whole book on tape. It could just be me, but in all of this and despite what feels like a handicap at times, I can almost read His lips inaudibly saying to me, “I love you this much.”