Listening to the Voice of God - Advent 2024

Summary

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In this enlightening talk, Dr. Andrew Swafford dives into the ways God speaks to us in our daily lives and reveals how we can nurture our hearts and minds to recognize and respond to God’s voice with greater clarity and confidence.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

“But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice”
John 10: 2-4

1. The Lord speaks to us through many different ways: through our desires, prayer and the reading of Scriptures, other people, our circumstances, Church teaching, silence. In what ways have you heard God’s voice this Advent? What ways might He be trying to speak to you?

2. How are you nurturing your mind and your heart to hear God’s voice? What can you do this season to feed your faith?

3 .What scripture passages have stood out to you so far in this season of Advent? What might be God trying to communicate to you through His Word?

4. Do you make room for silence in your life? Do you take time to ask God something and then really listen? How can you cultivate silence this Advent season?

5. Are you willing to “waste time with God”? What is getting in your way of spending time with the Lord in prayer and how can you overcome that?

Text: Listening to the Voice of God

Hello, friends, great to be with you. I am Dr. Swafford, coming to you from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Let’s begin in prayer.

Hail Mary

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen. Saint Benedict, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Listen With The Ear of Your Heart

So we’re going to talk about how to listen to God, how to listen to the voice of God. This is the perennial question, is it not? It’s something for all of us to kind of continue to think about, reflect on, experience in our own lives. St. Benedict begins his famous rule, this rule that became so foundational for monasteries all across Europe, going way back to the 6th century with these words. “Listen with the ear of your heart.” “Listen with the ear of your heart.” So how do we do that? So we’re going to go through a number of different kind of ways by which we might kind of get at this.

Desire

So first, desire. First desire. Because we all want to know what does God want for my life? What is He saying to me? But the reality is He is always speaking to us, but we’re not going to discover this by jumping inside God’s mind. It’s going to be revealed to us in a multitude of ways, some of which might appear all too ordinary, but that’s why we have to pay attention. We have to listen, and listen for the voice of God. So first desire. Especially when I talk to students about vocations, discernment, what do I do with my life? I will start asking, “What do you most deeply desire?” Because when you scrape away the sin, scrape away the fear, scrape away the selfish, purify the heart, once you do that, the deepest desires on one’s heart, that is very often the surest place to find the will of God for your life. What do you most deeply desire? You know, what’s that for which you most deeply long? This is how the Lord made us. And He may well have planted these desires on our heart to draw us back to Himself for sure, but also to incline us to the mission and purpose He has in our lives to work through. If He’s going to encounter us as rational and volitional agents, it’s going to be through our mind and heart. It’s going to be through our intellect and our will. It’s going to be through ideas, inspirations, and also desires.

So to pay close attention to our desires, not just in a fleeting sense. They have to be purified. They have to be purified. But if you ask like the martyrs, if you say, you know, “Would you rather it be otherwise?” Of course there’s a part of them that would not want to die, doesn’t want to go through the suffering, but in the depth of their heart, way down deep, once you get past that, they’d say, “I would not want it any other way.” So pay attention to the depth of our desires. What is it that we most, you know, deeply long for? What do we most deeply desire? Certainly number two, prayer, I’m going to come back to this because that’s going to be a gigantic one.

The Lord Speaks To Us Through Other People

Other people. The Lord speaks to us often through other people. I’ve always been struck in St. Augustine’s life by the number of times he sees this. It’s often in retrospect, he’ll say, “I see now, Lord, you were speaking through Saint Monica a number of times, but others as well.” These kind of casual conversations where something was said to him that stuck with him, and he realizes later, “Lord, you were speaking to me through these channels.” So let’s be open. Let’s be open to the fact that the Lord, and many saints will attest to this, that the Lord speaks to us through other people. You don’t always know it at the time. Often it’s clear in hindsight, in retrospect, but this is something the Lord does. He will speak to us. He loves, he loves to use creatures as secondary causes. He does this in creation. He’s the creator, but sometimes He works directly. Those are called miracles. But very often He works through the natural order, through what we call secondary causality or the sacraments.

Of course, God could sanctify us directly, but He likes to meet us where we are. We are human beings who learn through our senses, and our touch, et cetera, and so He uses matter. Well, first He becomes man in the incarnation, but He uses matter, water, wine, oil, physical signs to sanctify us because He loves to use creatures. It’s not because He needs them. It elevates the creature, and uses you and me for countless purposes. For evangelization, for the proclamation of the gospel. It’s not because He needs us, but He dignifies us. It’s a great dignity of the creature to share in His work. So He is also speaking to us through other people.

The Holy Scripture

How about holy scripture? Holy scripture. St. Ambrose has a great line. Great mentor of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, says in the 4th century that we speak to God when we pray, He speaks to us in the holy scriptures. The scriptures have always been venerated as unique. These are the only texts that we say are divinely authored by God. Of course, there’s a human aspect, but we see God as the divine author. We don’t say that about anything else that we treasure in the Catholic tradition. There’s a primacy to scripture. Perhaps the paradox is there’s an absolute primacy to scripture, but it has to be read from within the heart of the church, from within the living tradition of the faith. But scripture, do we see scripture as a vehicle, a medium through which the Lord speaks to us? Now, we have to read scripture as scripture, as not the word of man, but the word of God. It’s very often the word of God in the words of men.

Lectio Divina

There’s a time-tested practice going back to the ancient monks called Lectio Divina. It means a divine reading. And the key to it is really it’s a holy reading. It’s a pious reading. It’s not studying the Bible. I love studying the Bible. I love teaching of the Bible. That’s not the same thing as praying the scriptures, praying the Bible, praying the scriptures to hear God’s word for you and me today because how this works is this. The same Holy Spirit who inspires the sacred page dwells in you and dwells in me. And that’s the link, that’s the bridge.

So Lectio Divina, it’s often kind of thought about in terms of four steps. Lectio, reading, but here’s the key, don’t read a lot. Maybe a paragraph, maybe a sentence. Lectio, reading. Meditatio, start thinking about the text. What word stands out to you? Does anything jump off the page? Just read it a few times and see what starts to emerge. Oratio, prayer. So lectio, medidatio, oratio, prayer. Now we’re turning this over to the Lord. We’re really asking the Lord to speak to us through the text. And then contemplatio, contemplation. And by contemplation here, don’t think of it as overly cerebral. It’s a loving gaze. It’s a loving gaze between two lovers.

So yeah, the intellect is involved, but it’s not about study. And don’t think of these steps as mechanical. It doesn’t have to be, well, first this, then that, then that. No, no, no. This can all happen at the same time. But really all Lectio Divina is it’s a prayerful reading of the scriptures. Not to study something about the past other than there, but rather to encounter God, the living God, in the present. That’s what it’s all about. This is so powerful. Unfortunately, it’s not all that often practiced because sometimes we can’t read the Bible, but for apologetics, but for study, but for kind of academic purposes. Those are good. Those are all good.

But in the end, that’s not why God revealed Himself to us in this way. He wants to encounter us. As C.S. Lewis once put it, “Christianity is not man’s search for God. It’s God’s search for us.” It’s God’s search for you and for me. It’s the shepherd who’s finding His sheep. Whether we’re the one or the 99, we all need to be found, and tended to, and fed. So, scripture. Scripture, scripture, scripture. So many saints, they just soak themselves in scripture, but they read it often differently than we do.

Encounter God’s Voice Through Scripture

Another way at this. If you’re familiar with this, the spiritual senses of scripture, the Catechism has a great section. Catechism, about 115 to 118. The literal sense is sort of what the human author intended. It’s the literary historical sense. You have to move beyond that though. So the allegorical, the moral, the anagogical sense, these are all, you might think of this how the divine author is moving through the human author to speak in ways that go beyond the surface. And really any one passage in scripture can be interpreted with all four senses in mind. So allegorically, what does this passage mean with reference to Christ? Morally, what does it mean for me and my life in Christ? Anagogical, what does it mean for my life as oriented to heaven, my final end? How do I understand this in light of eternity?

You can think of the temple as a way to kind of capture all fours of the temple. In the literal sense it’s a physical building. In the allegorical sense, it’s Christ, he’s the living temple. Moral sense, you and I are temples of the Holy Spirit. And then the anagogical sense, the union with God and the holy of holies is starting to typify, to point to, how God will be all in all so permeated in the heavenly Jerusalem imbued with God’s presence. It’ll be like the holy of holies times a million and then some.

So to read scripture and encounter God, listen to God’s voice there. But you have to not just study scripture, you got to pray through scripture. And we have to nuance this. Be careful with this. But it is true though, right? So at basic level, what’s my vocation? Especially when my vocation has been settled in life. On the one hand, before our ordination, before we swear the oaths on the altar, before those things, before this formal consecration to a way of life with God as our witness, with God as our witness to empower us to do what we cannot do on our own, before that, we are really actively discerning our desires, as I said earlier.

After that though, I would beckon you and me and every one of us to trust the objectivity of the sacraments we have undertaken, the oaths we have sworn, the ordination that’s happened. That is to say what will often happen after the fact is the evil one will play games with us. The evil one will play games with us. The vocational grass will look greener on the other side. And this is where placing too much emphasis on desire can get us in trouble. Because it’s easy for someone who’s been married for 10 years, been ordained for 10 years, what have you, to be like, “You know what, I really long for this over here, this woman, this man, this other way of life. And I think maybe I was deceived, and I didn’t really discern this problem.” This happens all the time. And I’m not saying this to beat anybody up, but just for all of us moving with eyes moving forward, that is a dangerous, dangerous place to be.

Object Reality

Saint Ignatius of Loyola in his rules for overcoming desolation, his rule five, is in a time of desolation, never make a change, never make a spiritual change. And is this could be something big like a vocation. It could be something smaller like I’ve resolved to pray in a certain way. But here’s the thing is when we’re not feeling like it, when we’re in those down moments, this is Ignatius’s counsel. That’s not the time for sober decision making. That’s the time of the lie. That’s the time of deception. And if we give in then, and we just make our discernment of God’s voice as simply naval gazing, we’re too infatuated with our own desires, it can lead us astray. Our appetite can lead us astray.

So before our vocations are settled, we need to really actively discern our desires, what we most deeply long for. Afterward when we’ve been ordained, we swear on the oath on the altar, we’re married, et cetera, then we need to trust the objectivity of the sacraments we’ve undertaken. And I would say this. We think of God’s providence very often in the future. I trust God’s providence in the future. You also need to trust God’s providence in the past. That He has led you to this point, and whatever human causes you can see that are behind how you got to where you are, trust that God has written straight with our crooked lines, that He has guided us to this point. And at that point, trust the objectivity of the sacraments we have undertaken, the oaths we have sworn. I can’t tell you how much heartache this will save. And again, this is not to beat up anybody else who’s in. We all have messy situations, our families, things like that, but this is for all of us with eyes moving forward. On the one hand, before vocations are settled, discern our desires. Afterward, there really is a need to trust the objective reality of the sacraments we’ve undertaken.

More on objective reality. What are my own talents, gifts, inclinations? How has God fitted me for a certain way of life? Like we love our Rudy stories. We love our, you know, like you can be anything you want to be. And, you know, sometimes that’s what the Lord does, is He just against all odds, He just raises up the most unlikely. But very often, He also has kind of fitted us in a certain way, in a certain capacity, with certain gifts and inclinations, and/or circumstances in life, right? Given my circumstances, can I accept the limitations that they might involve? Whether it’s my time, my resources, energy, talent, skills. That can be a guide at a natural level. This isn’t simply secular. This is how God has fitted us, how He’s fitted us in our circumstances, how He’s fitted the universe. We want to pay attention to that as a way that we might see God’s plan unfolding, that we might hear God’s voice, or help us to discern God’s voice. If something is really going against the grain, we want to really test that, test that spirit, and be attentive to which voice are we listening to because the evil one’s going to speak as well. And if the evil one can’t get us to sin, he’ll be happy to simply derail us from the good that we ought to be doing.

Church Teaching

Okay, another one. So we had desire. Prayer, we’ll come back to that. Other people, scripture, objective reality. Church teaching, church teaching. Jesus says to the apostles, right, “He who rejects you rejects me, and rejects the one who sent me.” Jesus is the good shepherd, but he continues to shepherd us through the shepherds, through the teaching authority of the church. So at a practical level, read the Catechism. Study church doctrine. Not like as an academic, but just to let that feed your soul, let that feed your soul, and allow this to inform us of the full breath and wealth of divine truth that God has revealed to us, especially in light of earlier what I said about scripture. Praying through scripture and reading scripture from the heart of the church with Bible in one hand, Catechism in the other, this is a very powerful and explosive combination.

In some ways, though there’s more to it. I mean, the Great Tradition is not a straight jacket. It’s more like here’s the ocean in which it’s safe to swim. Now go play, go study, go pray. Go read, go think, go discuss, go talk, go play. Or it’s like the walls around a playground. It’s not constricting. It’s actually freeing and liberating. And to have this deep and firm sense of church doctrine as the walls, if you will, the framework in which we read and pray through holy scripture, and read, and pray, and listen for God’s voice is an immense, immense help, a great blessing, a great benefit. Let’s talk about prayer.

The Importance of Mental Prayer

There’s a great section in Augustine’s “Confessions” where he talks about how he’s at the cusp of his conversion. He’s actually hearing a testimony about someone whose life was changed by Christ, someone who’s like himself. And he’s wrestling, and he finally says, “The Lord brought me face to face with myself. I came face to face with myself.” And this is where things start to change. And in fact, shortly thereafter he reads Romans, St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 13, verse 13-14. And Paul just says, “Look, not in licentiousness and pleasure. That’s not what the kingdom’s about. It’s not those things. It’s about something more.” And then Augustine tells us, “The light of certainty flooded my heart. The light of certainty flooded not just my head, but my heart.”

I’d like to just bring up here mental prayer. Mental prayer. What I mean by that is listening prayer. For me, before the blessed sacrament, it’s been so, so powerful. It doesn’t have to be before the blessed sacrament. It could just be at home with scripture. But the key thing is you are asking the Lord personal questions and you’re listening. Because the reality is we can do a lot of vocal prayer and live a double life. Sad to say, but it’s true. But it’s really hard to enter into this kind of listening prayer and live a double life because the silence is just too loud. Generally for most people if you go before the Lord in that silence and you ask the Lord, “What in my life needs to change?” And you listen. “How are you prompting me? How are you calling me?” It won’t be riveting every time, but if you do that over a period of time, I promise you your life will never be the same. And it’s really hard to stay in serious sin and that kind of prayer because typically you’ll either stop praying because the silence is just too loud, or the gravity of the sin will lessen because the voice of the Lord becomes so stark and so clear in my experience.

And I learned to pray this way in college, kind of as my conversion was happening. And I had a big decision to make about a relationship with a girlfriend from high school. Good girl that she was, it was clear it wasn’t good for either one of us. Wasn’t leading either one of us toward Christ. And this was really the last vestige of my old life that had to go. And as I began to pray this way, over time, it wasn’t all at once, but over time, two things happened. The clarity of exactly what I had to do became so resoundingly clear that I couldn’t deny it. And not just clarity, but strength to do what I couldn’t have imagined doing just a few months prior. And that clarity and strength, really I don’t know if I’d be here today if I hadn’t learned to pray like that. That clarity and that strength is what gave me the resolve to walk away from that relationship and then really go full throttle into this new life, giving my life entirely over to Christ Jesus.

Take The Risk of Faith

In some ways if you want to hear the voice of God, we want to hear the voice of God, we’ve got to take the risk of faith. We’ve got to live the life of faith. We can’t wait till we hear and then live the life of faith. It’s in and through living the life of faith, praying, frequenting the sacraments, thinking about the teaching of the church, reading the scriptures. And this doesn’t have to be like a ton, just daily. C.S. Lewis had this great line. He says, “Neither this belief nor any other will remain alive unless it’s fed.” Unless it’s fed. We have to feed it. We have to nurture our minds and our hearts. And if we don’t, we shouldn’t be surprised that we’re not hearing the voice of God. So in my experience, this happens. We hear the voice of God better when we’re living the life, we take the risk of faith. And it’s not always resoundingly clear, right? But it’s by staying the course. I also add this in closing. Sometimes we’re going to hear the voice of God, not when we’re praying ardently about a specific thing. Sometimes it’s just going to come to us. It might be in prayer, it might be like on a run, or taking a walk. Sometimes you almost have to like allow your mind the space to breathe and not be so concentrated and fixated on something.

Prayer Is The Key

And what will often happen is we will slowly, over time, if we’re living the faith, living the life, taking the risk of faith, we’ll find ourselves resolved in a certain way that maybe is different than it was a couple months ago. We’ll find ourselves almost caught in being resolved in a certain way of life or a certain decision. And it wasn’t like we just thought about it to death or prayed about, like, “What do I do? What do I do?” Rather, over time, the Lord’s will, the Lord’s voice, becomes slowly unveiled through all these various means.

Again, through our desires, through other people, through scripture, through objective reality, through church teaching, but prayer is the key. Prayer is the key. To really hear the voice of God, we’ve got to pray. We can’t just think about God. We can’t just study about God. We can’t just talk about God. We have to encounter the living God. We have to be willing to waste time with God. We can’t be so hyper-efficient all the time. If you waste time with God, you’ll, over time, hear the voice of God. Thanks for being with me today. I will be praying for you. Please, pray for me. God bless you all. Take care.

About Dr. Andrew Swafford:

Dr. Andrew Swafford is Professor of Theology at Benedictine College. He is a national speaker and co-author of Gift and Grit: How Heroic Virtue Can Change Your Life and Relationships, A Catholic Guide to the Old Testament, and What We Believe: The Beauty of the Catholic Faith. He is also general editor and contributor to Ascension’s Great Adventure Catholic Bible. Among his other publications are Ascension’s Bible studies on Romans and Hebrews, Spiritual Survival in the Modern World, and John Paul II to Aristotle and Back Again. Andrew holds a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of St. Mary of the Lake and a master’s degree in Old Testament & Semitic Languages from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is an avid student of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and lives with his wife Sarah and their six children in Atchison, Kansas. You can find more information about Andrew at theswaffords.com or on X @andrew_swafford.