Would you like to better hear God’s voice?
People lost in distress often feel like God isn’t paying attention to them. That for whatever reason, God is busy doing other things, and their prayers for help remain unheeded.
But in truth God is always listening, always hearing our prayers, and answering them. The bigger issue is “Are we listening to what God has to say?” or is our attention diverted elsewhere.
Mary Baker Eddy makes this arresting observation, “Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are silent” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 89).
If we are at a dinner party with dozens of talkative guests anxious to gain our attention, we must single out which guest we listen to at any given moment. We can’t listen to four or five people talking at us at once and respond with authenticity. We listen to one person at a time.
We do the same with voices “in our head.” God’s voice is always present to hear, but if personal sense, selfish wants, anger, resentment, fear, or medical belief are also clamoring for attention, and we are listening, God’s voice may feel distant, even absent.
It’s helpful to remember that God is always talking to us giving us the wisdom, guidance and direction we need to move down a path of progress. But like selecting which guest we listen to at the dinner party, it helps to purposely select hearing God’s voice. Which means, we must turn away from all those other voices clamoring for our attention.
To succeed, shut down material sense. Cease reasoning out from a material point of view and reason from the basis of Spirit’s allness.
Listen with spiritual sense, which is your native ability to hear the voice of Truth and reason your situation out from a spiritual point of view. Through spiritual sense, you hear what God has to say.
“When the senses are silent,” God’s voice is heard.
I love the way you liken this to selecting which person at the party you choose to listen to and focus on Evan.. excellent point.
I often have to calm my mind with repetitive recitations of Bible verses and/or the scientific statement of being, over and over, and let God intervene versus telling God I’m listening.
Last night a claim of pain awakened me. After repeating the scientific statement of being over and over, this thought arrived— “This is not physical; this is mental and must be dealt with in thought.”
Then a silly thought came, “I want to introduce you to Mr. Mortal Mind, and my response was, “I’ve met him before and he’s a liar!”
I awoke this morning without pain and thanking God for Christian Science.
Wonderful Murph! Thank you for sharing this healing and what led to it-claiming what God knows, the Trith!
*Truth (Had to correct that!)
thank you Murph
Evan, thank you. such a elegant way to express this thought.
Thank you, Evan, for the reminder that God is always talking to us, giving us the wisdom and direction we need to move forward….and for telling us how we can listen. Much needed right now. ❣️
Now there’s a key to turn when feeling locked UP, so you’ve answered my prayer about what will help a prisoner, in prison. Justice has been an important event for me for many many years. So important that the CSM shared the release of a prisoner, who was exonerated years later, after he was tried and convicted along with 2 other suspects for “robbing a candy store”. At the time that happened, the store was near my residence, except before the event happened our family had moved to another state, so until I read about his release in the CSMonitor, I rejoiced, and have begun to support our system of justice to spend more time on investigations, by donating financial support to the study and release of innocent prisoners. Without a shadow of doubt, the innocent accused of a wrong doing, must not be locked up, but be exonerated and released. Whatever time that takes the system to do, to release the accused who is innocent.
Thanks Evan, very helpful reminder.
Thanks Evan, and commenters. This stands out to me: “ Cease reasoning out from a material point of view and reason from the basis of Spirit’s allness” because it’s often the opposite of what I’m tempted to do, and takes discipline. I’m on it today!
So very helpful, thank you
The quote above of Mrs. Eddy’s observation, “Spirit, God, is heard when the
senses are silent”, rings true. When we focus on matter, materiality and
the mortal senses, we are not listening to God’s voice or direction. The
thought came that if we are thinking of God as being with us more as a
limited guide, isn’t it like a child believing in a Santa Claus that visits children
on Christmas Eve, where they focus on what “they” want him to bring them,
materially? With 8 billion “humans” in the world – that does not make sense,
logistically, that God would be with “us”, but what about all of the others in the
world? Spiritually it makes sense … but limiting to mortal sense and all that goes
along with that, hampers our ability to see through Spirit, as God sees.
“Prayer is in the listening” By Kate Mullane Robertson. From the October 14, 2022 issue of The Christian Science Monitor:
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Home-Forum/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2022/1014/Prayer-is-in-the-listening
*Apologies, this probably won’t open completely if you don’t have a subscription to JSH-online; however, you can listen to it. 🙂