Jesus encouraged his followers to “have ears that hear.” Though he wasn’t speaking about physical hearing with our ears, hearing is a precious gift and sometimes needs to be augmented with hearing aids. There is research documentation that loss of hearing can have diminishing effects on cognitive function in older adults. We need to be able to hear the world around us in order to keep our brain cells stimulated.
We also need hearing assistance for listening to the voice of the Lord and keeping our faith stimulated and our hopes renewed. Many people, perhaps all people, wish they could hear a voice from the Lord and have their prayers answered. When it doesn’t come as we imagine it will, we get discouraged and sometimes quit praying. After a while, we get so out of touch that we wouldn’t recognize the voice if it came. I hope to share a good word with you that will help you listen for the voice you haven’t known or no longer recognize, the voice of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I hope to give you some new hearing aids—some tips on what to listen for.
I understand how easy it is not to recognize the voice. The Psalmist said, “I hear a voice I had not known” (Psalm 81:5, NRSV). It was a voice saying, “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I rescued you” (Psalm 81:6-7, NRSV). Often, we don’t expect to hear a word of comfort or rescue or support from God. We half suspect that the voice is going to judge us, condemn us, or at least chide us for our shortcomings, failures, or our outright sinfulness.
Many people don’t really seek to hear God because of fear. They don’t expect to hear a good word from the Lord, even though they may have heard the gospel referred to as “good news” all their lives. Our culture often shapes us to feel unworthy, dismisses us as unimportant, or outright mistreats us; and the effect is to make us feel that God would treat us that way, too. Some voices in our culture reflect a voice of judgment that they claim is from God. Some even deny the validity of hearing a word from the Lord in our lives at all.
I had been on the Christian path a long time when I realized that I had often not heard Jesus correctly. I had read hundreds of times, if not more, Jesus’ call to “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. . . and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30, NRSV ). I had heard this invitation to take on His yoke as yet another burden to bear. My inner voice protested, “What, Lord?!? Now I have to take your yoke upon me, too? It’s too much!” I was already carrying the burdens of feeling unworthy, excluded, opposed and dismissed. I wanted relief, not another burden.
By His Grace, my soul’s hearing was tuned over time to hear His voice differently—as a voice I had not known. Instead of a voice that I heard as demanding rightness, requiring perfection and judging my failures, I heard a voice of support, saying, “Let me help you carry your burdens. Here, take my yoke and I will carry your burdens with you. When you have no strength, I will carry it all.”
Now that is a voice I had not known, but the voice I most needed to hear. The voice of Jesus is a voice of kindness; a voice that comforts—not a demanding voice requiring a perfection I could never attain, and which was wearing me out trying. I heard the voice Jesus was speaking of when He said, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me” (John 10:27, NRSV). Do you know that voice of Jesus? Can you recognize it above the voice that the culture has erroneously given Him?
The Good Shepherd’s voice is the voice that allows for what some might call imperfection. Remember, He is the one who neither kept schedules nor always followed the rules. He was criticized for not enforcing strict ceremonial hand washing for His disciples and for plucking grain for a snack as He and his followers walked along by a grain field on the Sabbath—probably also walking farther than the Law said they could on a Sabbath.
No, the voice of Jesus is not a Pharisaical tone of restriction, criticism and judgment. It is a voice that sets us free. He is not calling us to rigid rightness, but to trust in His Love and live a simple life uncomplicated by unrealistic expectations. The life He led was of gracious kindness and goodness, welcome and hospitality, compassion and service. When we begin to listen to that voice, His kindness and goodness begin to seep into all the empty places in our inner being and to be expressed more and more through us.
My outward personality was trained through life experience to strive to be right—as a desperate effort to not be judged and to belong. It arises out of a longing to be approved and welcomed, often as a result of not receiving affirmation enough in childhood or adulthood. I spent a good bit of my adulthood trying to fulfill that longing through righteousness which tends to engender inner anger because nothing is ever perfect. That morphs into judgmental evaluation of oneself, everyone and everything; and it ends up marring the very relationships you most want to sustain and the good you hoped to do. It is a vicious cycle—until you hear the voice of Jesus rightly.
Think of what Jesus said about Living Water, the Bread of Life, Eternal Life, New Birth, Abundant Life—all concepts that are so inviting, life-giving and nurturing. Think of what He said in the Beatitudes, about where true happiness is found—not in being top dog, but in being content to live simply and kindly. Think of the kindness and goodness in His words and actions. Yes, He spoke harsh words too in some contexts, but notice to whom they are spoken—to people who deny the right of others to experience life with goodness and kindness at its center or people who oppose God and those who believe in God.
Yet, many Christians I know are not feeling that they hear His voice to them personally and are wondering why. I remember being confused about it, too. I knew that I was not experiencing what I thought Jesus had promised as abundant life, though I had run all the Christian bases I knew to run. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I believed deeply that He was not promising empty promises. I trusted Him to mean what He said. But something was missing. I was missing the true voice of the True Shepherd. I was listening but not hearing. I was listening through the wrong filters.
I invite you to tune your heart to the true voice of Jesus. His is the voice of love. What He came to give us is not more burdens to be right, but an invitation to let Him carry that burden for us to the cross, and now to walk with Him through life, knowing we do not walk alone. We walk with the One who was perfect in God’s eyes but criticized for not being perfect in the eyes of those who made themselves in the end to be enemies of God.
Now, how can we be sure? How can we sort through our thoughts and the world’s observations and hear the voice of truth? How do we know Jesus’ voice is the voice of truth? Well, because the One who welcomes us to walk with Him without fear of judgment is the One whose words came true. The scriptures tell us that a true prophet speaks words that come true, all the time. Jesus’ words came true. If he called for healing, healing came. If he called for the dead to be raised, they were raised. If he called for the storm on the sea to be still, it quieted down. If he declared water to become wine, it became the best wine. He predicted His own resurrection. At the empty tomb, the angel said to the women, “He has risen as he said.” AS HE SAID.
His voice speaks truth—the truth that God longs for us to trust in His love and become satisfied with simple goodness and kindness in life. We should ignore any other voice that pumps us up with ideas of being rigidly right or pompously inflated with striving for success to the point that we miss the joy of living. We are under a New Covenant, so read the Old Testament Laws in that light. Know that those ancient rigid requirements served their purpose in that time, but Jesus fulfilled them for us and brought in a new way of knowing God and pleasing God. Pay attention to His voice now—the voice of steadfast love that forgives, welcomes and saves—and the voice that invites us into communion with Him in our soul.
The prophets had been protesting for centuries against the rigidity of religious law-keeping. Jesus came saying the same things and fulfilling the hope that runs through the Old into the New Testaments—that God would dwell with us and invite us to dwell with Him, not based on our perfection but on His Love.
So, put on new hearing aids—new ways of filtering the sound of God’s voice. Know that it sounds just like Jesus’ voice and know that it is the voice of the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep and carries their burdens, rather than placing heavier and heavier burdens upon them. He had scathing rebukes for Pharisees who did that to people, so that is NOT His voice. His voice is the voice that affirms you, encourages you, comforts you. Listen to it. Speak it to yourself until you can recognize it in Jesus’ voice.
At Jesus’ baptism, God’s voice was heard saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved. LISTEN to Him” (Mark 9:7, NRSV). So, I invite you to get really still right now, take deep breaths and listen. Don’t move. Move inward to your inner soul. Filter out all the condemning voices and pay attention to the tender quiet voice of forgiveness, calling you to slip your weary burdens under His yoke. Try it. It is a blessing He wants to share with you.
He is saying to you that He sees you dragging your burdens and wants you to hear, “Let me help you carry it. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. I am not a punitive taskmaster. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
We can trust that true voice.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
