Village Shepherd

In a recent television documentary showing the possible long-term effects of the use of cannabis, a young man who had become mentally ill was featured. Since his constant use of cannabis started, he had gradually lost touch with reality and had begun to hear voices in his head. Now he had been off cannabis for some years, but the voices continued and he dolefully admitted that he didn't think he would ever get better.

Although he knew that the voices weren't "real", he asserted that they were real to him and were ruining his life. Sometimes the voices continued for days at a time, until he didn't know what to think or do. He was unable to hold down a job and his family were in despair at the destruction of his bright, young life.

Voices in the head raise quite an interesting problem about communicating with God. How do we hear God speak to us? If it's through a voice in our heads, how do we know that this is an authentic voice and not some sort of mental illness?

It may be that mental illness by no means excludes God's voice, since some of the prophets in the Old Testament, such as Ezekiel, displayed bizarre and eccentric behaviour which would be socially unacceptable today. But Ezekiel is reckoned by many to be the Father of Judaism and his message was certainly powerful because of his odd ways.

Nonetheless, to act on a voice in the head without checking out its authenticity in some way, could be very dangerous. There are well-documented accounts of those who have murdered others because a voice their head told them to do so and some suicide cults have responded to voices heard by the leader.

But there are many other ways in which God speaks to us, other than voices in the head. God might speak through our thoughts, especially if an apparently unconnected thought seems to come from nowhere and to suggest something quite personally risky in some way. God often challenges us with gentle suggestions, encouraging us to do things which we have always considered to be beyond us, and we need to be open to God's challenges.

God may speak to us too through other people, especially through those brave souls who are not afraid to tell us the truth. They are friends to be valued. Other people will sometimes come up with a comment which is breathtaking in its sudden relevance and in these cases it is probably God speaking through them.

God may speak to us through the Bible. Sometimes the reading set for the day has a striking relevance, or we hear the words as if for the first time even though we've heard the same story many times before. Sometimes we might open the Bible at random and come across a verse or a phrase which speaks exactly to our present situation.

Sometimes God speaks to our hearts through the stunning beauty of our countryside or our surroundings and we are awed by God's hand revealed in nature. Being on top of a mountain can put us into direct contact with God, as can being in a forest or in a cathedral or a church.

And sometimes God speaks to us through coincidences. It is amazing the number of times you can be thinking about someone and at that very moment, the phone rings with that person on the other end. Or you have broken down in your car and need help, which arrives out of the blue. Deepak Chopra, in his book, "The Spontaneous Fulfilment of Desire," urges us to notice and to cultivate coincidences for, he says, coincidences are always the hand of God.

Today's story from the Old Testament is full of coincidences, which the characters clearly saw as the work of God. Indeed, Abraham's servant could be said to have cultivated coincidence when seeking for a wife for Abraham's favourite son, Isaac.

The servant prayed for a coincidence. "O Lord, the God of my master Abraham," he prayed, "if now you will only make successful the way I am going! I am standing here by the spring of water; let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, "Please give me a little water from your jar to drink," and who will say to me, "Drink, and I will draw for your camels also"--let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master's son."

Amazingly, that's exactly what happened, with Rebekah, Isaac's future wife, using exactly the words that the servant had suggested. Coincidentally, Rebekah then turned out to be a relative, one of the tribe, a chosen one, and therefore entirely suitable as a wife for Isaac. Coincidentally again, she happened to be the most beautiful young woman there, she agreed to go with the servant and when she and Isaac met they fell in love with each other.

God fulfilled his purposes for the tribe and for Isaac and Rebekah personally, through a string of coincidences. But each coincidence required a human response. If the humans involved had not been open to God and able to intuit what God wanted of them, they might never have responded to God's prompts. They might have completely missed the coincidences and thus have thwarted the path of history and God's purposes for humankind.

If we want to hear God speaking to us, we shouldn't necessarily rely on voices in the head. But we should make sure that we're open to God, that we want to hear him and that we begin to look for his voice in many different ways. And then we should treasure and respond to all coincidences, for they may be God's way of changing our lives, too.