Hearing God Speak

Above you see a picture of St. Julian of Norwich and her cat. I have written about Julian before, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned the fact that she had no children but did have a cat. That factoid isn’t entirely relevant to today’s Thursday’s Thoughts, except to say that sometimes the people we are told shouldn’t have a voice (childless cat ladies) often have uniquely illuminating and beautiful things to say. As an anchoress and the author of the earliest known book written in English by a woman, Julian had uniquely illuminating and beautiful things to say.

She’s known for her images of God as mother and for her prayerful declaration that all shall be well. I’ve written about both of these before. What I want to spend a minute on today is the prayer she prayed before she had the visions that led to her writing Showings. In that prayer Julian asked God for three things. First, to “have recollection of Christ’s passion.” Second, she wanted a bodily sickness. And third, she wanted three “wounds”: “the wound of contrition, the wound of compassion and the wound of longing with my will for God.”^[1] Now, I’m not sure I would ever ask for a bodily illness, but as Julian tells her story it was when she received this sickness and thought she was going to die that she received profound visions from God. Julian then spent the rest of her life contemplating and writing about these visions.

Taken as a whole, her three requests show us a woman who purposefully opened herself to receiving God’s presence. She wanted contrition, compassion, and a longing for God. Contition, compassion, and a longing for God seem like a pretty good way to open our listening ears to hear God speak, don’t they?

Psalm 42 begins with the words, “As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (vv. 1-2).  The psalmist goes on to bemoan the struggles of life before turning to God’s profound, abundant, enlivening goodness. “By day,” they write, “the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life” (v. 8).

Sometimes God speaks to us without us asking for it - but Julian shows us that we can also pray for God to make us open to hearing God’s voice! We don’t have to just wait around and wonder if and when God will speak.

What virtues do you need in order to be open to hearing God’s voice? Do you need more compassion like Julian? Do you need more curiosity or imagination? Do you need more love for neighbor so you can hear God speak through others? Pray for those things!

A seminary preaching professor of mine used to say, “Sure, God speaks through our sermons, but isn’t it better to give the Spirit a fair shake by preparing first?” Isn’t it also better to give the Spirit a fair shake by preparing our lives and hearts to hear the Spirit speaking?!

This week I’m praying for patience and hope so that I might be more open to God’s voice. What will you pray for?

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

PS - Last week while camping I reread Claire Gilbert’s I, Julian: The Fictional Autobiography of Julian of Norwich. I highly recommend this book!