Can We Hear God at Work?
We Continue our discussion of the importance of listening. Having determined the essential importance of listening to our boss, our colleagues, and our customers at work, we then talked a bit about the importance of learning to really listen to God not only when we read the words of Scripture, but also when He "speaks" to us directly.
Regarding listening in the workplace, we specified three simple steps that will improve our listening skills at work: a) keep quiet when others speak to you; b) really concentrate on what they're saying; c) if you're unclear about what they said or meant, ask them to clarify. These are pretty straightforward. If you function this way normally, you're a natural good listener. If not, you can consciously and conscientiously work on these three steps to become a good listener. You'll derive all the benefits of good listening in the workplace: better relationships with your bosses and colleagues and customers; as a result, possibly better opportunities for career advancement; improved bottom line driven by happier customers.
When it comes to listening to God, you can apply these three steps as well. Of course, there's a bit more subtlety involved, especially when it comes to us hearing God's "voice," as opposed to reading His words in Scripture. After all, for most of us if not all of us, there's no "voice" to hear with our ears.
But as we discussed in our post this past Sunday, while we don't hear God's voice in our ears, we can "hear" His Voice in our hearts. And if we think about it, the example we saw of the Holy Spirit speaking to us isn't some strange mystical sort of thing. It fits right in with our common understanding of the heart and its role in our lives. What do we typically associate with the "heart"? Love, right? And since God is Love, more specifically, since the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son, it makes perfect sense that the Holy Spirit, who dwells within each of us (assuming we're in the state of grace), would "dwell" in our hearts.
Look, I'm no theologian. And I'm certainly not a mystic. But doesn't this all just fit together? If you just study and learn about our Holy Faith, you know that the Church teaches clearly that our bodies are "temples" of the Holy Spirit. And in that temple of our body, there's a heart. Voila!
So with that in mind, think about us walking around every day with the Holy Spirit inside us (again, assuming we're in the state of grace). Is it so strange to think that the Holy Spirit would speak to us from time to time? So isn't it possible, actually more than likely that if we make the effort to "listen" we might hear Him from time to time?
Now I'm not going to pretend that I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit all day. In fact, my own listening skills are, shall we say, challenged at best. (I'm working on them.) And when I'm at work, the times I've been able to pay attention to the Holy Spirit typically get squeezed into occasional discrete times - usually minutes - when I recollect myself and perhaps say a prayer or an aspiration in the midst of my busy day. But it is doable.
Besides those discrete moments of prayer (which basically means talking to God) though, I must say that the Holy Spirit's voice does occasionally pipe up at strategic moments. For example, on those occasions (fortunately rare) when I've been asked to do something that's ethically questionable, an uneasy feeling immediately creeps up, causing me to pause and think carefully. That feeling might be the Holy Spirit talking to me. Is it so strange that I'm thinking this? Again, see last Sunday's post and my confessor's comments about this sort of thing.
I guess we can sum up our discussion like this: While the workplace may not be the perfect environment for praying or for hearing the voice of God, we shouldn't discount the possibility, even the likelihood, that we can and will hear God's voice even in the midst of our busiest days. All we need to do is listen. And if we haven't been good at listening at work, either on the practical or the spiritual level, we've seen that listening is a skill that any of us can, with practice, develop.
So don't sell yourself short here. Just as we can and should take a moment here and there to pause and think about God, maybe just say a simple aspiration like "I love You Jesus," or "All for Thee, my God," in the midst of our workday, so too we can keep our spiritual "ears" open so that when the Holy Spirit "speaks" to us, we're ready to listen and respond.
Regarding listening in the workplace, we specified three simple steps that will improve our listening skills at work: a) keep quiet when others speak to you; b) really concentrate on what they're saying; c) if you're unclear about what they said or meant, ask them to clarify. These are pretty straightforward. If you function this way normally, you're a natural good listener. If not, you can consciously and conscientiously work on these three steps to become a good listener. You'll derive all the benefits of good listening in the workplace: better relationships with your bosses and colleagues and customers; as a result, possibly better opportunities for career advancement; improved bottom line driven by happier customers.
When it comes to listening to God, you can apply these three steps as well. Of course, there's a bit more subtlety involved, especially when it comes to us hearing God's "voice," as opposed to reading His words in Scripture. After all, for most of us if not all of us, there's no "voice" to hear with our ears.
But as we discussed in our post this past Sunday, while we don't hear God's voice in our ears, we can "hear" His Voice in our hearts. And if we think about it, the example we saw of the Holy Spirit speaking to us isn't some strange mystical sort of thing. It fits right in with our common understanding of the heart and its role in our lives. What do we typically associate with the "heart"? Love, right? And since God is Love, more specifically, since the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son, it makes perfect sense that the Holy Spirit, who dwells within each of us (assuming we're in the state of grace), would "dwell" in our hearts.
Look, I'm no theologian. And I'm certainly not a mystic. But doesn't this all just fit together? If you just study and learn about our Holy Faith, you know that the Church teaches clearly that our bodies are "temples" of the Holy Spirit. And in that temple of our body, there's a heart. Voila!
So with that in mind, think about us walking around every day with the Holy Spirit inside us (again, assuming we're in the state of grace). Is it so strange to think that the Holy Spirit would speak to us from time to time? So isn't it possible, actually more than likely that if we make the effort to "listen" we might hear Him from time to time?
Now I'm not going to pretend that I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit all day. In fact, my own listening skills are, shall we say, challenged at best. (I'm working on them.) And when I'm at work, the times I've been able to pay attention to the Holy Spirit typically get squeezed into occasional discrete times - usually minutes - when I recollect myself and perhaps say a prayer or an aspiration in the midst of my busy day. But it is doable.
Besides those discrete moments of prayer (which basically means talking to God) though, I must say that the Holy Spirit's voice does occasionally pipe up at strategic moments. For example, on those occasions (fortunately rare) when I've been asked to do something that's ethically questionable, an uneasy feeling immediately creeps up, causing me to pause and think carefully. That feeling might be the Holy Spirit talking to me. Is it so strange that I'm thinking this? Again, see last Sunday's post and my confessor's comments about this sort of thing.
I guess we can sum up our discussion like this: While the workplace may not be the perfect environment for praying or for hearing the voice of God, we shouldn't discount the possibility, even the likelihood, that we can and will hear God's voice even in the midst of our busiest days. All we need to do is listen. And if we haven't been good at listening at work, either on the practical or the spiritual level, we've seen that listening is a skill that any of us can, with practice, develop.
So don't sell yourself short here. Just as we can and should take a moment here and there to pause and think about God, maybe just say a simple aspiration like "I love You Jesus," or "All for Thee, my God," in the midst of our workday, so too we can keep our spiritual "ears" open so that when the Holy Spirit "speaks" to us, we're ready to listen and respond.
Comments