A Still, Small Voice
It was my senior year of high school and I was on a retreat. I had a major conversion moment my sophomore year, and I had been growing stronger in my faith since then. However, one issue kept nagging at me: I couldn’t hear God in prayer. How many of us have been there? We pray, we wait for a response, and then nothing happens. There is no booming voice from the sky, no angel appears on your shoulder with words of wisdom, and the mail doesn’t come in the next day with a letter from God telling you in detail what to do. I was fed up with the silence.
I went to one of the priests journeying with us on retreat, and I brought my concerns to him. To this day, his response changed the way I pray to this day. He looked at me, and said, “Just because you cannot hear God, does not mean that He is not responding to you. We live in a busy world filled with distractions, and it can be hard to hear God’s voice through the noise.” The Holy Spirit is the voice in our hearts that we need to listen for, but oftentimes we can be so distracted that when we are praying and asking for a response, we are not actually listening for the answer the Holy Spirit gives us.
Now, you may be thinking: “Woah, Brandon, this is God. He has a deep booming voice. How can my thoughts drown His voice out?” Actually, Scripture tells us that God’s voice is not a loud voice. In 1 Kings 19:11-13, it says:
Then the LORD said: “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will pass by.” There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, “Why are you here, Elijah?”
God spoke in the silence; His voice is a whisper. If we want to hear His voice in prayer, we must become familiar with His voice so that we can pick out His whisper amidst the cacophony of our thoughts.
How can you do this if you cannot hear Him? It may seem perplexing, but the priest has a very simple answer for me: Scripture. The Bible is literally the Word of God. That is why, at Mass after the readings, the lector says, “The Word of the Lord.” That is not a metaphor; those are not empty words. That is truth. The more we become familiar with God’s Word which He has given us, the easier it will be to hear His soft, loving whisper that He gives in answer to our prayers.
As we read the Bible, the Holy Spirit guides our hearts and minds to help us understand what God is trying to tell us. If you are reading the book of Exodus, and you keep getting drawn back to Pharaoh’s persecution of the Israelites, there are many ways to look at what God is trying to tell you there. The Holy Spirit guides us to the right understanding. He is the one who guides you to the realization that God is telling you to stop bullying your younger sibling, and not that God is telling you to go and enslave the Hebrew people. The more you pray with Scripture, the easier it is to feel the movement of the Holy Spirit. It may be difficult at first, but with practice, quieting your mind and opening your heart to the Holy Spirit becomes easier.
If you want to read the Bible, but do not know where to start, I would suggest the daily readings. Those are the verses from the Bible that we read at Mass every day. Conveniently, the bishops of the United States have put all the daily readings online, and they can be accessed here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/ (See? You don’t even need to have a Bible with you! Isn’t technology great?) As I close I want to reassure you that even if it seems like God doesn’t answer your prayers, He is. If you want to know Him better, become familiar with His Word, and hearing His voice will become easier. He is not a distant God, He is with you. God is here.
