By Father Casey

This weekend we'll hear one of the great stories in the Bible, about a boy named Samuel who is awakened in the night by a voice. He assumes the voice is that of his master Eli, so he trundles off in the dark to find out what his master wants. "Here I am," he says to the puzzled old man, "Did you call for me?" But it is not Eli's voice calling Samuel, so back to bed he goes. Two more times the boy is awakened by the voice calling his name, but by the third trip, Eli realizes that the voice Samuel hears is that of the Lord. Next time this happens, say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:1-10)."

It's a story about the call of one of the great prophets in Biblical history, who will one day anoint David as king. It is also very much a story about us, for it begs us to consider how to discern the voice of the Lord. Most of us long to hear God communicate with us. We yearn to have encounters in which God speaks, helping us to know what to do, answering our doubts or fears. The story suggests that God may be reaching out to us, but in ways that are easy to mistake or dismiss. So then, how can we know whether God is speaking to us, and if what we hear in prayer and in our lives really is the voice of the Lord?

There is much at stake in this question. I think back on the insurrection at the Capitol three years ago, and the "religious" atmosphere of that riot. Christian music blared from loud speakers, and the whole scene was filled with people praying for God to help them. Somehow, those folks believed God wanted them to violently throw down the government. Somehow they came to think that God was directing them to storm into Congress and topple our democracy. Their conflation of fears and fantasies with the voice of God nearly upended our nation. I trust you to dismiss any voices urging you to use terrorism as a tool for good, but this episode should cause all of us to greater humility, lest in less dramatic circumstances we, too, confuse the voice of the Lord with our own fears or fantasies.

In his wonderful book, Learning to Pray, Jesuit priest and author James Martin includes a chapter on how we can know it's God we're hearing when we pray. There is no sure and certain tool for discerning God's voice, for God is a mystery beyond our total comprehension, but there are some hallmarks of what God sounds like.

First, if what you are experiencing as God's voice stirs up in you feelings despair, hopelessness, or contempt, it's almost certainly not coming from God. Such feelings do not build us up, lead us further on the way of Jesus, or energize us for the work of love. When we hear things in our quiet moments saying things like, "Nothing will ever get better," "Everything is terrible (especially me)," or "It's all their fault," that is not a voice from God. That whisper is deeply unholy, and it is trying to take you away from the path of Jesus.

The voice of God, which is often mediated through people we know and trust, stirs up courage and strength, and fills us with consolation and inspiration. It is "clear, warm, and assuring," as Martin puts it. To be clear, God isn't always about making things easier for us, and the path of least resistance isn't always the path Jesus wants us to take. But even when we're being invited onto a challenging way, when we will need to do hard things and muster all our virtue, this voice fills us with hope and faith that we will be enough and have enough. Just remember the voice from heaven that speaks to Jesus in his baptism – "You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased." This is what God sounds like: speaking of our belovedness, encouraging us for what is to come, centering us in holy goodness.

Another way to think about whether the voice you hear is the voice of God is whether it is increasing in you the capacity for love. If it is not, then it's probably wise to be suspicious of that voice in your mind, and reconsider what it is stirring in you. And if you have to do some serious mental gymnastics to make the urge you're feeling sound loving, that's also telling. For example, if you feel a desire to confront someone and tell them off, because "speaking my truth is an act of love," it might be wise to consider whether this confrontation would actually contribute to your relationship getting any better. Is this what love really looks like?

This is where we can most easily make mistakes in our hyper-reactive society. We often fail to wait long enough to think things through before acting. Then, after we've said or done the thing we felt like doing in the moment, we try to justify ourselves by claiming that "God would be on our side." In my opinion, a lot of harm could be avoided in our world if Christians would just muster a little bit more patience, to allow time to ask whether what we feel like doing has anything to do with love. For as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry loves to say, "If it's not about love, it's not about God."

We should all be listening for God's voice in our lives. Jesus is not far off and removed, but living and engaged with us all the time through the power of the Holy Spirit. So, pray for the grace to strain the ears of your heart to listen for what God is saying to you. Check in with your Eli's, your wise friends and mentors, who can help you discern the source of what you're hearing. Read your Bible, especially the gospels, for God does a lot of speaking to us through the Word. And when you do feel the tingles of a divine voice, the story of Samuel gives us a good way to respond: "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

Father Casey +