The boys at the Tavern are talking about how to react to people who “hear God’s voice”. I’m not sure why they haven’t asked me for my insight on the whole thing…. Anyway, if you want to read the entire conversation, start here and work your way up.

A comment/post from a guy named Brian(cool name - must be smart) caught my attention :

People hear amazing stories about how God works or speaks or makes Himself known around the world. In a lot of cases these are genuine miracles or whatever you word you want to use. But like Jack, I am not prone to judge one way or another right away–it’s not my job. But anyway, instead of taking these things and rejoicing that God chose to bring fame to His name in these ways, we make them into methodologies and/or standards for normalcy (Joel, is that a word?). People say things like–if we would just get where we need to be and pray a certain way or fast a certain way or ______________ a certain way, God would speak to Americans like that. Implied is that if that isn’t your experience your messing up. But God does not fit into this way of thinking. He is not obliged to adhere to our methodology. He is perfectly able to act a certain way in a certain place and never, ever do it in the same way again. Our western thinking doesn’t like that.

His point about where the blame gets put is spot on, IMHO. If we’re not hearing God then we must need to get something straightened out in out spiritual life. Pray more, fast more, get into that quiet place so we can hear that still, small, voice. Or if we’re doing those things then we need to somehow do those better. This assumes that God wants to “speak” to us on such a regular, consistent basis that the only way we could miss hearing Him is if we somehow lacking in the necessary maturity.

I could go on, and probably will in future posts(perhaps to my detriment), but for now just think with me. Where oh where in scripture is “hearing from God” listed as one of the marks of maturity. Yep, it’s just not there. If I missed it, let me know.