Editor’s Be aware: Our June 2025 mini-series on the BCC Grace and Reality weblog addresses the subject of listening abilities in biblical counseling. On this remaining article, Dave Deuel exhorts us to hear for the voice of God throughout counseling periods, our presence and a ministry of listening might be the best reward we will provide. In different contributions to the collection, Joe Hussung shares how one can use reflections as a instrument for listening, and Darby Strickland explains how in occasions of tragedy and deep sorrow.
On the Daybreak of Time
To start with, God spoke; Eve and Adam listened. However when the primary couple refused to hear, they ruined their relationship with their Creator. The primary act of disobedience—the easy selecting and consuming of a chunk of fruit—was an issue with listening appropriately. That’s why Scripture calls us again to the Backyard and that authentic relationship with the Lord of Creation by listening to God as soon as once more (Rev. 22:1-3).
Millennia handed after the autumn. At some point on Mount Sinai, God spoke; Moses recorded. That’s how Moses may educate the youngsters of Israel God’s Torah-instruction on the base of the Mount—and the remainder of us for all human historical past. Moses wrote down what God mentioned. Scripture was the outcome! Moses advised the individuals, take heed to the voice of God in Scripture so that you may be taught to worry Him in your coronary heart. The early church captured this message within the Latin phrases, ex auditu, “by listening to.” Religion comes by listening to, however so does non secular development. In believing and rising, the guts should reply. The center follows its grasp each time.
Coronary heart-Change Response
What’s your coronary heart? Your biblical coronary heart isn’t the blood-pumping organ behind your sternum. Your coronary heart is sort of a mission management heart that lifts and guides a rocket into outer area. It’s the place you are feeling your feelings, and also you assume and plan your actions.
All of your actions circulate out of your coronary heart. It’s the a part of you that should get proper with God first earlier than you may obey Him along with your habits. When your coronary heart is correct with God, your actions progressively turn out to be godlier.
If there isn’t any coronary heart change, our exterior won’t change. Coronary heart change comes via listening to the voice of God in Scripture. It’s the one approach that we will develop spiritually. That’s our task as God’s individuals. We should be taught to worry God in our hearts. What may very well be extra essential?
Concern God
We generally discuss fearing God. However what does that contain? Consider it as a course of, not a easy motion.
- First, fearing God means responding to Him by standing in awe of Him and listening to His voice. You might say that it begins with taking God significantly. He’s there; acknowledge Him. That’s the solely cheap response to the presence of God. Pivotally, “Such worry breeds humility and alerts a willingness to obtain instruction from God.”[1]
- Second, fearing God requires committing ourselves to Him. Why? As a result of He owns us! Our relationship with God isn’t an informal back-slapping friendship, regardless that God does affectionately name us His buddies. God owns us as a result of He created us and purchased us out of the slave markets of sin. Sure, we belong to Him.
- Third, fearing God means doing what He asks of us. Listening to His voice entails obeying Him. This is the reason we should be taught to worry Him by strolling in submission to His will and residing correctly.[2] However studying to worry Him won’t be simple. You’ll be able to anticipate all Hell to be in opposition to it because it was with Devil and his minions in Job’s sufferings (Job 1-2).
Be taught to Concern
Moses admonishes his individuals, “Be taught to worry” (Deut. 5:32-6:12). The thought may appear unusual to us as a result of our inclination is to know our worry, its causes and results, till we conquer it. You’ve most likely seen “NO FEAR” on bumper stickers and T-shirts. Fearing God is totally different. The extra we study God, the extra holy God turns into within the interior sanctuary of our coronary heart, and the extra we be taught to worry Him. How does it work?
We’re advised that Ezra, the priest-scribe, searched Scripture, obeyed it, and taught the individuals, in that order (Ezra 7:10). No educating with out first looking God’s Phrase. That may be educating from ignorance. What’s extra, we should always not try educating with out first obeying the Scripture ourselves, for that will be hypocrisy. We should be taught to worry God in our hearts by listening to His voice acutely.
The notion of cozying as much as God to reduce our fears of Him, though frequent, isn’t an correct image of Scripture. God does give consolation to the brokenhearted once we draw close to to Him in childlike religion, however not on the expense of fearing Him. Concern is our becoming response to God; it’s what He wishes from us. His holiness calls for it. We be taught to worry by listening, then meditating on Scripture.
Meditate for Coronary heart-Change
We get an incredible illustration of listening and fearing God within the E-book of Acts. Whereas touring, Phillip came across an Ethiopian queen’s official sitting in his chariot and studying Isaiah 53, a prophecy about Jesus’ loss of life. Phillip requested him, “What are you studying?” The Queen’s official responded, “How can I do know until somebody explains it to me?” (Acts 8:31).
Philip stepped up into the chariot, sat down subsequent to the official, and defined the gospel from Isaiah 53. Phillip helped the official take heed to the voice of God (vv. 26-40). That’s what God has commissioned us to do in our soul care. We should learn His Phrase, perceive it, and clarify it to others. We should hear, even co-meditate, along with our counselees.
Soul Care Consists of Co-Meditation
After we counsel others, we do as did the Ethiopian who learn Scripture. He was listening in his thoughts’s ear; Phillip was explaining. Our duty as soul care givers is to take heed to God communicate via His Phrase, then reply to God’s voice in obedience. How ought to we reply to Scripture and expertise the implications God designed? We should take heed to no less than 4 meditation choices out there to us:
- Neither we nor our counselee hears something. God’s voice in Scripture stays unheard and advantages nobody.
- We hear God’s voice, however our counselee doesn’t. We aren’t instantly useful to our counselee, however will assist them deal with their must hear.
- Our counselee hears God’s voice in Scripture, however we don’t. We should humbly ask God to assist us take heed to Him earlier than doing soul care.
- We and our counselee hear the voice of God collectively. We replicate with Scripture on their non secular wants in lively co-meditation.
God’s voice ought to echo powerfully and endlessly via our meditation, for counseling is co-meditation. Counselor and counselee meditate on passages of God’s message collectively which can be pertinent to the counselee’s non secular wants.[3]
To God’s Mission
We do soul care greatest by preaching, educating, and counseling sin-burdened and struggling individuals to worry God extra. The worry of the Lord is the start of knowledge and data (Prov. 9:10-12). This implies it’s the first precept of care that begins with non secular self-care and results in caring for others. When worry of the Lord is our major concern, options come to us via the work of the Spirit.
God has ready us to glorify Him via His mission. He alone can result in ministry affect. All all through human historical past, godly leaders have helped different individuals be taught to worry. To start with, God spoke; individuals listened. We should get again to the backyard and hear for the voice of God.
Questions for Reflection
- How essential is listening to God along with these to whom we provide soul care?
- Why can we battle to take heed to God and listen to His voice in Scripture?
- How can we transfer past the deadlock of not listening to God’s voice?
[1] Tremper Longman III, The Concern of the Lord is Knowledge: A Theological Introduction to Knowledge in Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Tutorial, 2017), 13.
[2] Within the fall passage (Gen. 2-3), human knowledge could seem like a menace to the worry of God, nevertheless it doesn’t essentially observe. For clarification, see Tova Forti, “The Polarity of Knowledge and Concern of God within the Eden Narrative and within the E-book of Proverbs,” Biblische Notizen. Neue Folge 149 (2011): 46).
[3] For an exploration of silent contemplation in soul care, see Caroline Newheiser, “Counselor, Contemplate Turning into Comfy with Silence” within the Grace and Reality Weblog (February 3, 2025).
