Lent 15

VOICE PEOPLE

There is grace, again, Father. More than I deserve. More than I dared hope for. More than I would have given me, were I you. I flubbed the dub yesterday, eating a big meal late at night when I wasn’t even hungry. Walking too far, too fast, in macho pride and paying for it now. Watching dumb TV, when I should have read your Word and gone to bed.

Yet here’s this grace, and I don’t know why. And please, Father, don’t say, “Why do you think?” Because I really don’t have a clue, and we’ll just bat it back and forth over the net, like a shuttlecock.

Mind you, I don’t want to sound ungrateful here. Grace is always amazing, and I am amazed – and relieved and delighted. But – why?

My son, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

My love for you began before eternity.

Before you were conceived, I conceived you.

While nations rose and fell away,

I kept the idea of you in my heart,

awaiting the perfect moment

for you to be born.

I have loved you

since before your first breath,

to the one you just took.

How much do I love you?

How far is the east from the west?

How deep is the ocean?

How high the sky?

I loved you enough

to send my only son

to die for you,

to shed his blood for you,

that you might be forever free.

And if you were the only one,

I still would have sent him.

Father, forgive me. And help me to never again wonder why you love me, only to be grateful that you do.

Amen.

I’ve just seen something. Two days ago, I asked a two-part question on behalf of anyone who doubted they could hear you in their heart. And I promised them I’d share some of the typical answers, the next day. But David Wilkerson’s prophetic warning intervened. Something like that makes everything else seem inconsequential, and I forgot that I’d promised the answers. But you didn’t. You answered them for me, when I didn’t even ask them for me.

Restate the questions and provide the answers. And do not ever disparage my relationship with each of them, and with you, by referring to it as inconsequential. Nothing could be more relevant at this time than the depth and breadth of my love for each one of my children. They must know that I love them in the unshakable depths of their being, or the coming darkness will catch them unprepared.

I’m sorry, Father. The questions I asked you, on behalf of each of them, was: How long have you loved me? And how much do you love me?

Doubters, if you will sit perfectly still and calm, and listen inwardly so intently that it seems as if the very pores of your skin are listening, you will hear His answer. Write down what you hear. Shake off the contempt of the other one who insists it is nothing more that your imagination. Tomorrow, look at what you’ve written. Check it with Scripture. Show it to your pastor or Bible-study leader or prayer-partner – someone in whose spiritual wisdom you have confidence – and see what their discernment is.

Here are some of the answers I’ve heard in the Hearing-His-Voice workshops that I lead.

Father, how long have you loved me?

Since before your mother met your father.

Always.

Forever.

Since before time began.

Since before I set the earth in orbit, spinning on its axis.

Father, how much do you love me?

More than you can possibly imagine.

Can you count the stars? The grains of sand in the ocean? Those are finite quantities; the depth of my love for you is unfathomable.

Enough to be laid in a manger and nailed to a cross.

Enough to leave the ninety and nine, to find the one – you.

I’ve just seen why connecting with God is such an urgent matter, and why it is so relevant. He has been saying Trust me to a lot of us, who are at the edge of the precipice and losing our balance. We trust Him, because we don’t have any other choice. Everything we might have trusted, or used to trust, has been taken away from us. So we trust Him – because He’s all we have left.

We should be grateful for the circumstances which have removed, or are removing, all the other things we might have trusted, or used to trust. But most of us aren’t grateful. Most of us are still hoping that we can hang on to a little bit of our former world. Or if we do lose it all, that He might, as He did with Job, restore it all. (He might. But we’d better not count on it.)

Here’s one thing we can count on: if we can hear Him, we can go to Him with our fears and concerns, our hurts and frustrations. We can go to Him for sake of each other. And if we can be in His presence, sustained by His grace, we can endure – anything!

The Puritans – they were called that, because they believed that God had called them to purify the Church from within. The term was originally intended as a term of derogation, by those who mocked and scorned them. (The bishops, for instance, could not see anything in the Church that needed purifying.) It has become a term of honor.

The mockers and scorners are going to call us People of the Voice, or simply Voice People, because we believe we can hear the Voice of the Shepherd in our hearts. Their leaders will warn their flocks against us. But the Voice People will have a much easier time trusting Him, than others will.

As I write that, it all seems wildly improbable – spiritual science fiction. But what is coming also seems wildly improbable – and far stranger than any fiction..

Keep listening, friends.

And Father, if there be anything written here that is not of you, let it fall quickly away to ashes and dust. But that which is of you, let it be established in our hearts.