Request from a group for women, “The Well,” in the parish: We would like to read out your testimony on how you learnt to hear and discern God’s voice for yourself and your advice for women starting to seek God’s voice.
Hi everyone
I do not think a personal
testimony or narrative would be helpful as everything is 20/20 in hindsight.
Much of what happens is chaotic and random but only makes sense when, like the
prodigal son I, “come to myself.” (15: 17) The risk of testimonies is that they
often understate the timeline in which individuals wrestle, fail, fail and
struggle while highlighting the Transfiguration moment. If you want to hear a
personal testimony, I am happy to appear in person and answer questions. For
the moment, I will simply give a few pointers that I feel may be useful to
learning how to hear the voice of God in your life:
The first step, as I see it, is
as St Augustine would term it “holy desire.” I need to desire God and want to
be holy. This means reorienting my desire away from lesser goods and shallow
desires. The ultimate good is God. The source of desire is the heart. So, my
heart needs a posture that searches for God: “Ask and it will be given you;
search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.” (Mt 7: 7-8)
Having done this the mind and
heart need to be cleared of distractions and interference so as to prepare the
heart for God. Acknowledging sin, hurts and areas of unforgiveness is
important. By bringing these to light we are not controlled by them. When I
realise that my actions can be triggered by emotional wounds or subconscious
flight or fight reactions, I can expose them to the light of God’s truth since:
“… but sin is not reckoned when there is no law.” (Rm 5: 13) My sinful
condition means that: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not
want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do
it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Rm 7: 19-20) Having arrived at the point
where I realise my helplessness in the presence of my own sin I am open to
receiving God’s mercy for what it really is: “Who will rescue me from this body
of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Chrost our Lord!” (Rm 7: 24-25)
Coming to God’s mercy through the
sacrament of penance is only the start. If the house is clean but left empty
the demons will return worse than ever: “Then it (the unclean spirit) goes and
brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live
there; and the last state of the person is worse than the first.” (Lk 11:
25-26) The house needs to be filled with prayer. The structures of prayer,
especially as the start of the day and the end help us to be mindful of what we
intend to do and what has actually happened. This process is could the “conscience
examen” in the Ignatian tradition.
As I pray and monitor the
movements of my heart throughout the day and week, I can learn more about
myself. As I clear the static in my mind from useless distractions and petty
addictions, I begin to see things differently. In the movements of my heart, I
want to please the Lord and to follow him. In this way desire leads to action.
As I listen to my heart I am attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
The questions is – how do I know that the prompting is from God and not my
sinful and self-indulgent desires?: “You do not have, because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you
get on your pleasures.” (James 4: 4-5) I would give the following advice on
this score:
1. Begin
by pledging yourself to serve God and his mission.
2. Ask
the Holy Spirit or Our Lady to guide you as you go about your daily life. Be
alert to the movement of you heart as you work, play and rest.
3. Accept
that the answer on occasion will be “No”: “Three times I appealed to the Lord
about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient
for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’.” (2 Cor 12: 8-9)
4. Understand
that when God prompts you, the prompt will not come from you and you will most
often be surprized or have objections: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
(Lk 1: 34)
5. You
will not know what the end result will be of the action you are asked to
undertake. God gives you a guide and not a map: “… for we walk by faith, not by
sight.” (2 Cor 5: 7)
6. Do
not be discouraged by periods of frustration or rebuff: “When they had come
opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did
not allow them; so, passing Myasia, they went down to Troas.” (Acts 16: 7-8)
7. The
prompt will be gentle but insistent, if it is of the Holy Spirit, while prompts
from Our Lady will tend to be directive and even demanding: “Do whatever he
tells you.” (Jn 2: 5)
8. If
it is of God. When you act, the object of your activity will say to you: “How
did you know?” or other doors will immediately be opened leading to further
opportunities: “When they arrived, they called the church together and related
all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith for
the Gentiles.” (Acts 14: 27)
9. As
you grow in trust and obedience you will be attacked by doubts and misgivings
which originate from the evil spirit: “And we do this so that we may not be
outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs.” (2 Cor 2: 11)
10. Returning
to prayer and spiritual direction will help you to deal with the efforts of the
evil spirit to thwart God’s work in you: “Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw
near to you…” (James 4: 7-8)
The Ignatian discernment of
spirits can be a helpful and practical guide to listening to God’s voice. The
fundamental principle is: when I am doing good, I cannot be doing bad. The
consolations of the good spirit are enduring whiles the desolations of the good
spirit make me sad for my sins and lead me back to God. The consolations of the
evil spirit are short lived, while the desolations of the evil spirit lead to
despair, brokenness and self-condemnation. If I feel desolation while I am
doing something holy, such as saying the rosary or attending Mass, I know that
the desolation is of the evil spirit. In such cases, I will be making progress
in holiness, so I need to double the prayer or devotion to advance further in
faith and confound the evil one.
In listening to God, I have to
put my trust in Him. The doctrine of St Catherine of Siena regarding the
“mystical marriage” is helpful in this regard. I look to meet the needs of the
heavenly bridegroom while forgetting my own, since I trust implicitly that he
will meet my needs. St John the Baptist puts it this way: “he must increase,
but I must decrease.” (Jn 3: 30) St Paul writes: “Beloved, I do not consider
that I have made it my own (the resurrection), but this one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press
on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Phil 3: 13-14)
The result will be that by
listening to God others will come to know and love Him on their own account and
our testimony recedes in importance as we all rejoice in the presence of the
one who has saved us: “They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what
you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that
this is truly the saviour of the world.’ (Jn 4: 42)” For ourselves we come to
know that Christ who loved us and gave himself for us is the motivation to live
and understand the meaning of existence through the lense of God’s saving love:
“For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died
for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live
might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for
them.” (2 Cor 5: 14-15)
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