I have a client who says that because she has never heard God's voice she feels God is a Creator who finished the job and watches with mild interest, but is "definitely not interventionist." For me this simply returns us to the idea of how do you hear Inward Voice? If we are looking for a thundering voice in the wilderness, commandments on a tablet, a burning bush, or the fulfillment of a prophecy then most people would conclude that indeed God is dead. But I think we have been done a big disservice by being taught that that is how God's voice is heard. Most modern clergy would urge people to turn to prayer and listen for answers, but again I don't think much instruction is given on recognizing the answers.
This reminds me of the joke (previously related in another post-clearly one I'm fond of) : A man is in a flood and he goes on the roof of his house and prays to God to save him. As he watches the water rising, another man floats by on a log and offers him to get on "no he says, I will be saved." After a while more a man comes by in a row boat and offers him to get in. He again refuses saying he will be saved. With alarm he sees the water now reaching the roof and as he stands ankle deep a helicopter comes and lowers a rope. He again refuses shouting "I will be saved". But he drowns, and after he does he gets to the gates of Heaven and he says to St. Peter "I prayed to God to be saved, why did he let me drown." And Peter says with annoyance: "For heaven sakes, he sent you a log, a boat, and a helicopter....what more did you want."
For me this "joke" speaks to the idea that we can fail to hear God's answer to our prayers if we have preconceived ideas of what the answer will be. Not only do we have to offer the desires of our heart and then let go of the outcome, but we have to be able to "hear" with special ears. My experience of how God speaks is on bill board signs, thru nature, thru other people's mouths, through lines in various books, thru amazing sychronicties, etc. But I have had to learn how to recognize the sort of invisible "red circle" around the answer. One of my friend's told me she had learned to pray and ask for a "very clear unmistakable signs" to be given. At first I thought "Well that is a lot of hutzpah telling God how to deliver the answer". However, then I realized: "but I do need for the answer to be clear." So now I ask that too sometimes.
I remember hearing a man giving a talk, and he talked about praying for direction as to whether he should go to
I know there are those who will still say both the joke and the story of the hawks are coincidences, not signs from God. Those folks will also scoff at the popular practice of asking something in prayer and opening a holy book (or I find any meaningful book will do) randomly to a page and understanding that something in the content of the page contains the answer. They say: "wishful thinking. Reading into it the answer you want, etc." Except that the friend mentioned in that story did not want to go to divinity school. He was already examining the question because of other spiritual nigglings he had received. Many ethical humanists will also argue that this is all just a fancy way of listening to our conscience which is innately human inborn trait. I do agree it is innate. However, I also happen to think that having one is one way that God calls us to a certain path. So the whistle blower who takes great personal risk to serve the good of the many; the spark that makes us tell the truth instead of a lie, the civil servant or the Good Samaritan that risks their own safety to save another, I think listen to the Inward Light that burns in each of us, speaking of the Greater Good that the Creator desires for us all.
But I must also acknowledge that another difference between the skeptics, or the Humanist, and those of us who believe that God does speak to us, is actually having a spiritual experience. When one has had an experience of an answer so clear and so undeniable that to deny it would be a kind of blaspheme, or has had an Experience of The Presense that was overpowering, or life changing, or as some would say a second birth, then there is a kind of certainty that comes. This certainty is not faith, any more than it is faith to believe that the sun exists during the night time. I have met people whose fear and skeptism was so thick that I do not know how they could have such an experience - how they could notice the log, the boat or the helicopter as a Presence. In fact I have met people who have gotten in that boat and helicopter and talk about their great good fortune and how they have worked hard for everything they have, noticing not the abundance of Grace they have experienced. But I have also met people who earnestly seek and long for that confirming Presence and haven’t found it. I do not know why they have not had it - other than perhaps again expecting it to look a certain way - like Jesus or Mohammad or a parting of the seas. I would encourage those who seek such experiences to be open to it looking any sort of way, but also being able to answer your question "Is this what I think it is" with at least 4 more hawks.
This is also to say that if you want God to speak to you than you must be in dialogue; you must start the conversation. Funny how friends never call if you never call them. So if we ask The Divine Teacher for answers we are much more likely to get them, if we ask the Divine Mother for comfort we are much more likely to get it. If we ask the Divine Provider for our hearts desire, we are much more likely to receive it. If we sit silently saying nothing, or even brooding about the lack of communication from God than we are likely to continue to get silence back. When we put the question out there than we can wait for the answer that comes not immediately, but in a sort of metaphorical language, which is still quite obvious when the answer appears before you.
