Listening

Why is my language not clear to you?  Because you are unable to hear what I say (Jn. 8:43).

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me (Jn. 10:27).

When Jesus opened the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind, it was not only His compassion for the outcasts that moved Him, nor only to get people's attention, even though He did say, "The miracles I do in My Father's Name speak for Me."  All of God's acts are eternal and on-going; everything Jesus did in His earthly ministry, He is still doing today.

Many of us have struggled for years to read the Bible, but it fails to "speak" to us.  We may even have attended Bible studies given by scholars, and found them interesting, but when the class is over, that is the end of the experience. 

We do not necessarily need to read Scripture to hear the voice of God in our innermost being.  What Scripture does is confirm to us that it was God speaking, and not our own voice.  It is hard to learn to trust that inner voice without having Scripture to confirm it.  But when we have heard God speaking, and then He leads us to a particular verse that we did not even know existed, then and only then do we begin to have confidence that we are hearing God and not ourselves.  The process is a kind of "school of the Holy Spirit."  What is required is that we desire to learn, that we desire to hear, that we pray, "Lord, I want to see You;" "Lord, I want to hear You."  This kind of prayer will not go unanswered.

The blind, the halt, and the lame entered the kingdom of knowing Jesus Christ before the "sleek and the fat" simply because they needed something, because their desire was great -- to be included.  Society had shut them out as literally "unworthy," but Jesus drew them back in, and this time, as the center of attention.  People came to those who were healed, who in their testimony, became attractive and accepted by those who had rejected them in their need.

William Barry, S.J., once said, "Desire is the key element in prayer and in developing a relationship with God....Unless we have some attraction, desire, or curiosity about God, we will not be moved to initiate a relationship with Him. God is trying to make Himself attractive to us, but He won't force a relationship upon us." 

At the Last Supper, Peter said to Jesus, "No,...you shall never wash my feet."  Jesus answered him, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."  I have heard it said that unless we allow God to do something for us, we will never have a relationship with Him. 

Psalm 37 says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

When we first timidly venture to ask for what we most earnestly desire, the Lord seems to go out of His way to minister to us.  Later, as we gain confidence and trust in Him, our desires change: we want more and more of Him.  For some people, the desire is simply to be less afraid of God.  For some, the desire itself is smothered over by addiction, and their desire may be first to be free of the addictions.  Whatever it is, if we suppress our real desire, we will always have a cool relationship with God.  Even if we think He cannot or will not grant our desire, we must present it until we receive His view or answer to our prayer.  As with human relationships, real dialogue with God is what brings miracles.

Jesus is impotent unless He meets someone who wants something from him -- and then we enter a partnership of desires:  "Of course I want to heal you...."

If we cannot hear His Voice today, if we cannot read Scripture today, a good place to begin is with the desire to hear and to see:  Lord, open my eyes and my ears to hear your voice and to see the words of eternal life.