Isaiah 30:19-21
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
February 1, 2026
Joan of Arc heard voices from God. In George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, the king is angered by this, and complains to Joan, “O, your voices! Why don’t your voices come to me? I’m the king, not you!”
Joan replies, “They do come to you, but you don’t hear them. You don’t sit in the field in the evening listening for them. When the church bells ring, you cross yourself and have done with it. But if you pray from your heart and listen to the trilling of the bells after they stop ringing, you’ll hear the voices as well as I.”
The Bible reveals a God who’s eager to speak with us. To hear His voice, we just have to quiet ourselves, pay attention and keep listening – though it might be a long wait before a message from Him registers with us.
In today’s scripture the prophet Isaiah is speaking to a nation of Israel that’s fearing imminent invasion from the terrifying Assyrians and seeking a military alliance with Egypt to shore up its defenses. Isaiah tells the nation to repent of its reliance on political stratagems, to do nothing but pray and obey God, and to hang all its hope for survival on His faithfulness in keeping His promises.
Isaiah urges them to trust that, if the time comes for them to do more than just that, God will guide them to take the right action. God swears, “When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
Of course, it’s often hard to be sure that the voice behind us is God’s; and we find certainty, if we find it at all, only after we’ve moved in the direction we think God is indicating. In Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow, the hero confesses, “Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I’ve had my share of…goals, but my life has come to me, or I have gone to it, mainly by way of mistakes and surprises…Often, my hopes have [been realized through my errors. I am a deaf and blind] pilgrim…and yet, looking back, I can’t shake the feeling I’ve been led.”
It is not just those weak in faith who struggle with doubt about whether they’re walking in God’s will. The saintly Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, once prayed, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I don’t see the road ahead of me, and can’t know for certain where it will end…The fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all I do. I hope I’ll never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do that, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing of it at the time. Therefore I’ll trust you even when I feel lost…for you are ever with me.”
Very rarely does God give us a detailed, step-by-step itinerary on which every twist and turn in our journey is clearly marked. Often, we can at best only hope we’re headed generally in the right direction and, banking on God’s concern about our course, believe that, if one course option would be terrible, He’ll make it obvious or, if one option is way better than any other, He’ll make that obvious. Apart from that unusual kind of situation, most decisions are between different routes that in the end both bring us to the fulfillment of God’s will. It’s often not what route we walk, but how we walk whatever route we take.
Of course, it’s possible for us to diminish our ability to hear from God. We can let the earwax of sin clog our hearing canals, or put fingers in our ears because we think we know what God’s going to say and don’t like it. Why, He might ask us to give up a cherished pastime or to do something we find uncomfortable!
There is a correlation between our character and conduct and our capacity to hear God’s voice. That’s why Jesus said it’s only those already resolved to do God’s will who discern whether Jesus’ words are heaven sent, and why Jesus said it’s the pure in heart who see God. It’s also why He warned that if our eye is unhealthy, our whole being will be full of darkness.
The condition of our character and conduct impacts our capacity to hear from God. Only if we’re in the right spiritual place, will we pick up clear messages from God.
Acoustic experts talk about “whispering galleries”. A whispering gallery is a circular or hemispherical enclosure under a dome or a vault – such as Grand Central Station in New York, the Statuary Hall in Washington D.C. or St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. In structures like that, sounds are captured and amplified in such a way that a whisper in one place can be heard distinctly on the other side of the gallery even when far away in a room filled with noisy people. If a listener is in the right place, they can heart a whisper that no one else can.
God frequently whispers. We can, however, hear Him, even with a lot of loud hustle and bustle around us, if we are genuinely trying to hear Him and are in the right spiritual place – a place of a submitted resolve to do whatever God says. That doesn’t mean we have to get exactly in some precise location. We just have to be in approximately the right place, one in line with God’s big, overall purposes. We don’t have to get anywhere near perfect in order to get God’s perfect guidance.
Singer Rich Mullins was once a big star in the Christian music world, and fans would line up for his autograph. Sometimes a fan would ask him about how to hear God telling them His will. Mullins’ standard response, given with a twinkle in his eye, ran along these lines: “It’s not complicated. God’s primary will is that you love Him with everything you’ve got and your neighbor as yourself. Just get busy with that; and, if God really wants you to do it in some particular way, He’ll fill in all the blanks in a way you can’t miss. For example, if He wants you to go to Egypt, He’ll give you, as He did Joseph, eleven jealous brothers who will sell you into slavery.”
To hear from God, it simplifies things to be focused on the main thing: revering our Maker and respecting our neighbor with love. Once we’re in that spiritual place, the only issue is how we can best fulfill that, the highest of all priorities. But most often there’s not one best way to do it. Yet, if there is, God can be counted on to make it obvious – say, by jealous brothers, a burning bush, odd circumstances or just a settled conviction. Otherwise, we’re free to love however we like, and God doesn’t care how we proceed as long as we genuinely care about Him and others.
We don’t need to sweat the small stuff, as long as we do justice to the biggest stuff. To hear all we need to from God, we just need to be all in on loving Him and neighbor.
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