Hearing God in Conversation Quotes

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”2”
― Samuel C. Williamson, Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere

“It is perfectly consistent with Scripture to ask to see—to hear and know—God. With the psalmist, we can pray, God, you are my God! I eagerly seek you. My soul thirsts for you and my flesh faints for you as in a dry, weary, and parched land. (Ps. 63:1 SWP) Paul spends much of chapter 3 in Ephesians praying that we would experience God. He asks first: that we be “strengthened with power through [God’s] Spirit in [our] inner being” (v. 16); then: that we have the “strength to comprehend” God’s love (v. 18; the Greek word for “comprehend” means “to be seized” as a city is seized by a conquering general, so Paul prays that we be overcome by God’s love); finally: that we know “the width, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ, and that we know something that goes beyond knowledge” (vv. 18–19 SWP). Paul is praying for an inner, God-given certainty of Christ’s love, a knowledge that surpasses knowledge. Paul is praying for an experience—an experience of knowing God (and his love for us) with such certainty that our lives explode in joy. If the psalmists and Paul can ask this of God, then it’s perfectly fine for us to seek it as well. If we only aim for euphoria, we’ll eventually experience emptiness. But if we aim for God, we’ll get everything else we ever wanted thrown in.”
― Samuel C. Williamson, Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere

“Knowing God is our goal in hearing him. We think we need comfort or direction, but the only comfort and direction we need is seeing God. The patriarch Job never got answers to his questions—he got God. The psalmist in Psalm 73 saw the success of evil men and despaired—until he saw God. The writer of Hebrews saw the world rebelling against God and said our solution is, “We see him” (Heb. 2.9).”
― Samuel C. Williamson, Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere

“Do I want another spine-tingling, euphoric experience of God? Sure, bring it on! Even more, though, I need the spine-strengthening inner knowledge of his reality—his self-revelation—to change my deepest beliefs.”
― Samuel C. Williamson, Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere

“Emotions are not the deepest part of us; however, they reveal our deepest beliefs. And those beliefs can be changed and renewed only through God’s revelation”
― Samuel C. Williamson, Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere