Hearing God in Meditation

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Afterthought

Puritan Board Senior
Okay, so I probably should have posted this as soon as I got home so that my memory wouldn't be as blurred concerning the facts of the situation. The other day, my brother and I visited a small group lead by a youth pastor. This youth pastor suggested that we meditate before we started our "bible study" that day in order to keep us from straying from bad interpretations. Now, I will describe as best as I can remember what he told us all to do.

(1) He told us to assume a posture we would be comfortable with for a while and to not move.
(2) He told us to confess our sins to God and ask for forgiveness. If we forgot something, he suggested we ask the Holy Spirit or wait in silence for the Holy Spirit to bring to remembrance them (can't remember which).
(3) He told us to ask God to come down and fill us and the room with His presence.
(3.5) He told us to consider the sufferings Christ went through for us. He told us to consider His love for us and to thank Him for saving us. To help us to do this (or so I think was his motive), he graphically described some of Christ's sufferings for us.
My memory is a little fuzzy at this point, but I remember that (4) we were to be silent--not even praying--but to be silent and "listen for God's voice." He said that sometimes what people heard would bring them to certain emotional states (e.g., joyful crying). He said that we should have a notebook and pencil ready to write anything important down that we heard. He said that this was the most difficult part of meditation.
(5) Near the end of the exercise, he asked us to tell to the group anything we had heard if believed it was appropriate (or maybe if we felt comfortable sharing? My memory fails me at this point.). No one said anything, so he continued to encourage us to not be afraid to tell the group what we had heard God say if we heard anything. He did this for a while with no one responding, and then the exercise ended. He played a couple of worship songs which he said we should feel free to sing along to if we wished.


Now, I was okay until we got to the "listen to God's voice" part of the whole exercise. I rationalized that statement away by giving the pastor the benefit of the doubt (even though I was already a bit alarmed since I thought meditation was supposed to be on God and the Bible?), but then I was completely thrown off by what he said about "writing down what you heard." I followed the pastor's exercise because I am not sure what to believe concerning this, but I was careful to pray for protection for our group and me from deceiving ourselves into thinking we heard God if indeed we had not--including any impulses or feelings that the exercise might induce. Note that this was not a Charismatic church and appears to be solid in theology otherwise. They might lean towards Arminian theology slightly, but I'm not sure. Their worship services on Sunday make me think it to be a Southern Baptist-like church.

So now my question. Is there any way or sense in that this exercise is biblical or true? Is there any way or sense in that we can "hear God's voice" through meditation? Is there any possible way that the youth pastor was correct? If so what? Am I wrong in the way I am reacting to this? I apologize that I wasn't bold enough to ask the youth pastor afterwards for clarifications of his terms and for not posting about it asap in order to keep myself from losing as many facts as possibe from memory. I am really concerned about this--more so for the others in the group who might be deceived or harmed by this exercise in the future than for myself because I know to test everything by the Bible and know to be skeptical at appropriate times and so am better protected from harming myself from this exercise, but all the same, I want to know the truth and know I am not infallbile and so am concerned about this in those ways too.
 
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Raymond, you are completely right to be concerned with what you have described. The only steps above that are biblical would be #'s 1 and 2 although regarding #1, you are allowed to move during prayer. Confession of sin is most certainly biblical and I often ask the Holy Spirit to bring to my mind any unconfessed sin I may have missed. After that though, it's unfortunately downhill...
3) it makes no sense to ask God to come fill you or the room with His presence. God the Holy Spirit indwells Believers and God is omnipresent, so why would he not already be there? I guess I might consider giving the youth pastor a pass here because my experience has been when people use this type of language what they really mean is to focus on God and enter into worship, but he still should have worded it differently in my opinion.
4 & 5) The canon of scripture is closed. God does not speak to men outside of the bible. If the group wanted to hear from God, then everyone should have read the bible. Then you could each take turns sharing a passage you read or something similar.

I would steer clear of this pastor and this group. The youth pastor may mean well, but he is mingling Christianity with eastern mysticism stuff. Weird and unbiblical.
 
Much of this comes from liberalism where God's word takes a backseat to your own personal journey. The scriptures don't matter so much as listening for God. The odd thing to me is that this kind of thinking took hold in much of the evangelical, non-denominational world which would otherwise not associate themselves with liberalism.
 
I enjoy meditation but do not seek to hear God's voice except through the revealed word of the Bible. I remind people of Heb.1:1-2 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ESV
 
Thanks, Raymond, for posting this. I have been meaning to ask the PuritanBoard community about something similar to this for quite some time.

There is an older couple on staff with one of the campus ministries (it is a popular non-denominational group found across the world) at my university. The wife leads a Bible study for the girls. I was in a conservation with one of the girls in the group and she started talking about the notion of "listening prayer," in which you listen for God to speak while praying. I asked this girl where she was taught this, and told me that the aforementioned older woman had been teaching the girls this in the Bible study. I was very concerned.

Has anyone on here heard the term "listening prayer" before? Do you know where it comes from?
 
Deeply thinking on God's word might be the best way to describe meditation. I love it when I have the time to read and drift in and out of prayer and thought, bringing in other sections of scripture, sermons I've heard, questions about the Bible I've pondered in the past and trying to see if they are answered in what I'm considering.

The only prayerful meditation or listening prayer that I can think of would involve praying God's word back to Him ... "thank you for ...." "Lord, I see your promises" "I'm so convicted regarding what I'm seeing here in your word ..."
 
Andres said:
3) it makes no sense to ask God to come fill you or the room with His presence. God the Holy Spirit indwells Believers and God is omnipresent, so why would he not already be there? I guess I might consider giving the youth pastor a pass here because my experience has been when people use this type of language what they really mean is to focus on God and enter into worship, but he still should have worded it differently in my opinion.
Yes, now that I think about it, such a thought did cross my mind for a fleeting moment. Perhaps he also could have meant for God to provide an "extra" blessing of His presence? I mean this in the sense we use when speaking of God being present to bless or curse (and thus solving the problem of omnipresence and the existence of Hell). This guy does tend to word stuff weird though. I remember a session a while ago in which he said something about God being visible. I asked him about it, and he said that he meant people could experience and feel God. In light of the above exercise he endorsed though, that sounds really bad now.

I should also point out that part of my memory has been restored. Between 3 & 4, he told us to consider what Christ had suffered for us and to thank Him for loving us and saving us. And (I think) he also said to thank God we could think of. Unfortunately, he described it a bit too well because it formed an image in my head of a crucifix-like object and caused me trouble with breaking the second commandment. I'll edit the OP with that. Is any part of that biblical in meditation too?

Andres said:
4 & 5) The canon of scripture is closed. God does not speak to men outside of the bible.
*sigh* and we only read two verses of the Bible near the end of the "Bible study." =( Anyway, I was hoping he meant by "hearing God's voice" something like allowing Providence to, say, bring up a solution to some problem or something that the subconscious had already worked out, but I don't know if that's biblical or not. I still have lots of reading to do on this before I can talk about it and communicate succesfully since it appears a lot of the language used has different meanings to different people and other parts of the language have very specific meanings. =/

Andres said:
I would steer clear of this pastor and this group. The youth pastor may mean well, but he is mingling Christianity with eastern mysticism stuff. Weird and unbiblical.
Jerusalem Blade said:
Hello Raymond,

Andres is right in his remarks on this. There are ministries focused on this kind of stuff
Thank you both! I had no idea how...big a problem this was. Unfortunately, although I am eighteen, I'm still a dependent, so I won't have a whole lot of say about leaving this group. It looks like I'll need to talk to my dad about this one. However, I don't know how far I'll get. Out of all the systematic theologies I could have read, he chose Grudem's one for me to read. Now, this wouldn't be a problem, but I've also had to read Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline and Brother Lawrence's Practicing the Presence, so...yeah. Personally, I found much good in Foster's and Lawrence's books and found them to be quite edifying to me since at the time I read them I was too steeped in rationalism and needed a push in the mystical direction (especially by the time I read Foster's book). But I did not realize that there were so many dangerous problems in them.

If we (my siblings and I) are not allowed to avoid the group, I suppose I'll be allowed to avoid the group myself, but I know my siblings won't. And if they're getting dangerous teaching, then I'd like to know precisely what they're being taught. To prevent damage to myself, I suppose I could just avoid the "meditation" part or use it the way meditation is supposed to be used. Thanks for the sites! It looks like I have a lot of reading I need to do on this issue. :book2: This is especially apparent from reading through some of the other threads in this section with "illumination" and "revelation" taking on specific meanings.

Andres said:
If the group wanted to hear from God, then everyone should have read the bible. Then you could each take turns sharing a passage you read or something similar.
Maybe next time I should do this and share this verse =p:
baron said:
I remind people of Heb.1:1-2 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ESV
...though it might be explained away by saying that the Son speaks through the Spirit or something to that effect, I guess. -__-


jwithnell said:
Much of this comes from liberalism where God's word takes a backseat to your own personal journey. The scriptures don't matter so much as listening for God. The odd thing to me is that this kind of thinking took hold in much of the evangelical, non-denominational world which would otherwise not associate themselves with liberalism.
Yes, it is so bizzare! And frustrating! And this particular pastor even knows the pastor of a nearby Presbyterian church! I think this youth pastor even went to Knox Theological Seminary, but I'm not sure nor am I sure whether that would make a difference.

jwithnall said:
Deeply thinking on God's word might be the best way to describe meditation. I love it when I have the time to read and drift in and out of prayer and thought, bringing in other sections of scripture, sermons I've heard, questions about the Bible I've pondered in the past and trying to see if they are answered in what I'm considering.

The only prayerful meditation or listening prayer that I can think of would involve praying God's word back to Him ... "thank you for ...." "Lord, I see your promises" "I'm so convicted regarding what I'm seeing here in your word ..."
Thank you for this!

Emmanuel said:
Thanks, Raymond, for posting this. I have been meaning to ask the PuritanBoard community about something similar to this for quite some time.

There is an older couple on staff with one of the campus ministries (it is a popular non-denominational group found across the world) at my university. The wife leads a Bible study for the girls. I was in a conservation with one of the girls in the group and she started talking about the notion of "listening prayer," in which you listen for God to speak while praying. I asked this girl where she was taught this, and told me that the aforementioned older woman had been teaching the girls this in the Bible study. I was very concerned.

Has anyone on here heard the term "listening prayer" before? Do you know where it comes from?
You're welcome, Joel! What finally caused me to fire off this message was overhearing one of my siblings tell the other that he was going to do that meditation thing again. I hadn't considered it before, but this teaching has the potential to spread beyond just that group and my siblings. If that particular sibling finds the teaching good, he will probably suggest it to others that we know. I have never heard of the term "listening prayer" before, but I'm glad I've heard of it now. It's always better to hear about these things before they matter and you need to refute it for someone's protection.
 
I now have some more information on that “listening prayer” for whoever is interested. I encountered it last week as the group (different group) I was in was being taught about it. I was able to ask the person a question about it, and from other research, I’ve been able to find out a few interesting things.

Firstly, the person said that prayer is talking to God. Too often we ask God about something or ask Him to show us something, but we do not listen for His answer. Prayer is talking to God, so therefore like in ordinary conversation we must also listen. Prayer is a dialogue.

Next, I asked him what he meant by hearing God speak. He gave me a very enlightening answer. He said that he means God will direct our thoughts or bring some thought to mind as we listen for Him to speak. It does not necessarily mean God will speak audibly to that person, though he says he has friends who claim to have heard God in that way. He gave an example of how he had planned a certain worship set (he’s a worship pastor) and had planned things to go a certain way, but God changed his mind about something during the set (i.e., he heard God “speak”), and he did something different which turned out to be better than what he had originally planned on doing (sorry, can’t remember precisely what it was about!).

He ended his discourse by encouraging us to listen to God’s voice throughout the week. He talked about the importance of personal devotions (i.e., reading the Bible on our own), but he definitely kept it distinct from the listening prayer by also saying we should try to listen to God while we pray too instead of prayer being only us talking to Him.

That same youth pastor I mentioned in the OP I encountered again during a Sunday School setting. (He has not done any more of that mysticism stuff since that incident so far, and I’m still waiting for an opportunity to speak to him privately about it) He asked an interesting question saying “How can we hear God speak?” I couldn’t miss the opportunity so I spoke up immediately by saying “By reading the Bible.” Somewhat to my surprise, he enthusiastically said I was correct, but as he said I was correct and started explaining my statement to the rest of the group, he seemed to be implying that it was merely the primary way of hearing God speak--implying the listening prayer again.

Last week when I was with a group helping some kids, I got a larger taste of Evangelicalism, and I grew more aware of just how personal Evangelicals mean when they talk about a “personal relationship with Jesus.” For one thing, we taught songs to the kids which had lyrics such as “Jesus is my Superhero, You’re my Star, My best friend” and “Everything’s going to be okay and everything’s going to be alright because I’ve got Jesus in my life” (actually, I would strongly object to the first one since it seems to me to be a bit irreverent calling Jesus a Superhero, am I wrong on that?). Correct me if I’m wrong, but there does seem to be room for a personal Jesus (how personal would have to go to another thread, I guess). However, it seems to me Evangelicals personalize Jesus so much they lose sight of His Deity and thus are in error of “Knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He sent” (John 17:3).


Now, I can summarize these and other findings as follows, and if I’m correct, it makes perfect sense why such stuff creeps into Evangelical churches.

*It starts with Jesus is very, very personal--this seems to be a fundamental tenant of the hard-to-pin-down Evangelicalism
*So prayer is defined as talking with God
*Since Jesus is so personal, we must be able to hear Him talk since we hear others speak when we have a conversation with them
*Prayer defined as “talking with God” must mean “Prayer is a dialogue” or “Prayer is a conversation” (unlike the Westminster Catechism’s definition)
*We should therefore listen to God while we pray in order to hear Him
*He usually speaks to us through the Bible and what He says must be tested by it
*However, God also speaks to us by nudging our minds, bringing thoughts to it, etc.
*He may, of course, speak audibly but usually it’s done through bringing thoughts to mind, etc.
*We should learn to hear what God says in that way

Notice how perfectly and logically the listening prayer falls into these Evangelical churches. Notice also that the notion of a very personal Jesus gives rise to a loss of fear of God and so gives rise to teaching such songs that I mentioned to kids. Of course, once we’ve opened the door to mysticism through the listening prayer, all sorts of stuff creeps in. For example, to continue my logic:

*Some people will hear God, others won’t
*Since we should hear God yet some don’t, those Christians must be listening to God wrong
*In everyday conversation, distractions keep us form listening to another
*We must rid ourselves of distractions
*We should therefore empty our minds of distraction in order to hear God
*Some failing at this, they must find a way to do this
*They find things such as the “Spiritual” Disciplines, mantras, imagination, and other mystical stuff
*They begin to enter alternate states of conscience and fall deep into mysticism
*For those who do hear God, once they hear Him, it is natural they do not want to forget what He said
*It is natural, therefore, to write down what God is saying to them personally


Now, thinking like an Evangelical defending the listening prayer from the Bible, I can think of a few arguments which are worth discussing.
(1) Continuation of all of the spiritual gifts in some way
(2) Examples of such things in the book of Acts and with other characters in the Bible (like Elijah or Moses)
(3) We are to “wait upon God”
(4) God says to “Be still and know that I am God”

(1) Even if all the spiritual gifts continued, the “listening prayer” would come under the gift of prophecy and we know that not everyone has the gift of prophecy. Case closed with respect to this argument for the listening prayer as far as it is currently understood. In case the listening prayer is redefined and so it is argued that then only some are prophets and must listen to God in prayer, some objections must be raised (i) prayer must not be a dialogue then for most people which destroys the whole concept of a “listening prayer” and means prayer must have a different definition, (ii) whatever God “says” to these “prophets,” it must not be adding revelation to the Bible but if it does not add revelation to the Bible, then God does not speak in the way the “prophets” think He does, (iii) how do we find these people who have the gift of prophecy who should be practicing the listening prayer?
(2) Those happened in certain special circumstances to people who were giving revelation from God and so should not be expected for today.
(3) “Wait upon God” does not imply the “listening prayer.” I’ve found a few threads here addressing this: http://www.puritanboard.com/f41/psalm-130-4-5-a-47866/ and http://www.puritanboard.com/f43/isaiah-64-4-a-9276/ and http://www.puritanboard.com/f43/questions-about-isaiah-40-31-a-50947/
Is there anything else any of you could add which does not dip into the Hebrew for showing that “wait upon God” does not imply the “listening prayer?”
(4) “Be still and know that I am God” has no reference to hearing God but merely recognizing what God has already revealed about Himself--mainlythat He is God while we are only men. Am I correct in this?


I don’t know, just some thoughts I thought I’d put out there for future reference since it looks to me like the “listening prayer” is really going to take off and be everywhere soon if it isn’t already everywhere right now. By all means, if my quick arguments are faulty, please correct them. Or better still, please help by making a better argument. It seems to me that the “listening prayer” by itself is a misguided idea that results from a wrong idea of prayer, a wrong idea of Jesus, and a confusion of revelation and illumination. The closest thing to the listening prayer (as I understand it) as far as being Biblical would be listening to urges or desires as you pray for people or asking God to guide our thoughts and desires as we figure something out or as we attempt to do what He wants us to do by applying Biblical principles (illumination) and using our head as situations come up--both radically different from "hearing God speak" outside of the Word.

Any other thoughts on this/am I wrong about anything?
 
The other day, my brother and I visited a small group lead by a youth pastor. This youth pastor suggested that we meditate before we started our "bible study" that day in order to keep us from straying from bad interpretations.

The inclusion of that "from" which I have emphasized is priceless and says it all.
 
Raymond, I just wanted to dispel another myth of Christianity and more specifically prayer. The myth is the point you brought up above about prayer being a "dialogue" with God. I've also heard prayer described as conversation with God and because of this we are to both speak to Him and patienly wait and listen for Him to speak back to us. This is not prayer. Prayer is making our petitions known to God. It also consists of us worshipping/adoring God and also as we talked about originally confessing our sins to Him. Finally, prayer includes giving thanks to God. As you can see all these things are us talking to the Father through our mediator Jesus Christ. It's not a conversation like, "hi God how are you today?" and then we wait for Him to say fine back or ask us about our day. Again, I reiterate what I said earlier and what several other posters have said - God speaks to us through His Word.
 
Well I don't think we need to automatically assume that all meditation like this is eastern style. I would say there is a place for silent but BIBLICAL meditation. By biblical meditation I mean thinking on verses/doctrines and God repetitively till you get the full meaning of it or apply it to yourself. This is totally safe and fine. Also taking a moment to calm yourself down from the business of the world and get focused on coming before God in prayer or in the word is totally fine, even in the context of a bible study and silence.

However the other type of meditation is when you try to get into another state of consciousness usually by emptying your mind through various techniques. This is the dangerous one. Also visualisation can be dangerous, e.g. your visualisation of the cross. However I will say that just because the guy described the cross and your mind automatically formed a picture of it does not necessarily mean this guy was trying to get you to practice some kind of spiritual visualisation. I mean I have a very vivid imagination and when the preacher is describing things I cant help it.
 
Meditation is mentioned in the Bible. There is a place for meditation of the sort that fits a biblical worldview and honors the Scriptures. But the stuff decribed in the OP didn't do that.

Ed Clowney probably examined this topic as thoroughly as any reformed authority of our day. For those interested in more, his short book on the topic, "Christian Meditation," is back in print. He also gave a series of lectures.
 
Joshua said:
Many of the posts in this thread are longer and I'm not inclined to read them. I mean that as no personal offense, so my posts can just as easily be disregarded, but let me say this:
That's okay with me. I do the same thing myself sometimes. Thanks for your post! It was very helpful and is probably the best and clearest description I've heard yet about God speaking through His Word and not through our thoughts etc. unmediated by the Word.

SolaScriptura said:
The inclusion of that "from" which I have emphasized is priceless and says it all.
lol, poor choice of wording on my part, but it fits quite well! xD

Andres said:
Raymond, I just wanted to dispel another myth of Christianity and more specifically prayer. The myth is the point you brought up above about prayer being a "dialogue" with God. I've also heard prayer described as conversation with God and because of this we are to both speak to Him and patienly wait and listen for Him to speak back to us. This is not prayer. Prayer is making our petitions known to God.
Thanks again for your post!

LeeJUk said:
Also visualisation can be dangerous, e.g. your visualisation of the cross. However I will say that just because the guy described the cross and your mind automatically formed a picture of it does not necessarily mean this guy was trying to get you to practice some kind of spiritual visualisation. I mean I have a very vivid imagination and when the preacher is describing things I cant help it.
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. It can be very hard to not judge so quickly... I didn't think he was trying to get us to practice visualization, but now that I think about it, I think that statement of mine was kind of unnecessary to the point of the OP. Sorry about that.

Jack K said:
Ed Clowney probably examined this topic as thoroughly as any reformed authority of our day. For those interested in more, his short book on the topic, "Christian Meditation," is back in print. He also gave a series of lectures.
Thank you! It looks like I have some more stuff to listen to on my MP3 player (at last! xD)! Now that I've spent so much time figuring out what meditation is not, it's high time I started working out what Christian meditation is in more detail.
 
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What about conviction of sin? This often comes upon us as a sensation or thoughts, and we may not be reading a particular passage or hearing a sermon concerning our particular sin in that instance.

If sensation and thoughts are not scripture, but are real and are from the Holy Spirit, don't we need to qualify our rejection of God speaking to us?
 
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