by Sue Gamelin

One day years ago, Jay, our third child, told me that he sometimes heard his name being called out when no one was around. I stood there wondering if this was teenage dreaming, the first signs of schizophrenia, or just another in a long series of efforts to throw his mom off balance. But Jay didn’t look as if he were needling me. Instead, he seemed to be telling me a precious truth, the kind we are reluctant to share lest someone make fun of it. He said that when he heard his name called out and no one was around, he would answer, "Speak, God. I’m listening."

Little Samuel answered much the same way when a voice calling his name interrupted his sleep. "Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening," Samuel said in 1 Samuel 3:10. He said those poignant words at a time in Israel’s history when the "word of the LORD was rare . . . [and] visions not widespread" (3:1). But in the temple where this child slept, the "Lamp of God had not yet gone out" (3:3). Neither had the voice of God. "Samuel! Samuel!" God called into this young boy’s dreams time and time and time again (3:4, 3:6, 3:8).

Finally, with the help of the priest Eli, Samuel brightened the temple’s gloom with his answer, "Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening."

Have you heard your name called out in the night at the edges of your sleep? Has a voice interrupted your prayers with an unanticipated response? Has the hair on your arms stood up in the midst of an ordinary worship service when you experienced God’s presence in a way that others seemed oblivious to?

"Speak, LORD," Samuel called out into the darkness of the temple at Shiloh, "for your servant is listening." "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word," proclaimed Mary to the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:38).

If you have answered "yes" to any of these questions, you know that you have been blessed with God’s presence in your life. If you have been able to whisper your own question, "Is that you, God?" you know the blessing that followed.

But how can you be sure it is God’s voice calling your name, God answering your prayers, God showing up to speak to you even when there is a crowd around? "Is that you, God," you may ask, "or is it my own yearning for something, anything to happen?" Your question may be terribly urgent: "Is that you, God, or are the forces of evil teasing me in the way I am most easily deceived?"

Of course, only you and God can answer these important questions. But it is vital to answer them. If we don’t wrestle with these questions, we might miss or dismiss God’s persistent attempts to reach us. If we don’t think God will speak to us, we may fill our prayer time with the sound of our own voices, giving God no space to interrupt our petitions with answers. If we ignore the whisper or shout of God calling out our names because we are sure we have it all figured out, we may miss an amazing divine intervention. Efforts to hush that voice may lead us to push God even further away, to turn up the volume on the TV or turn on the computer or pick up the phone.

Hearing God’s voice
Just in case any of those possibilities exist for you, I offer some hints from my own experience and the experiences that others have shared with me. I offer them in the hope that, when we hear our names called out, we may answer tremblingly, "Speak, God, I am listening," and not with our impatient telephone voices, "Thank you, but I’m not interested."

I have learned that God may not use words to make our hearts burn within us. At 1 p.m. on May 8, 1977, I understood–quite suddenly and without preamble–that I was supposed to leave a life that I loved and go to seminary to become a pastor. I remember exactly where I stood right then, with an amazing sense of God’s gift of peace flowing in, with, and under me. It seemed that God was saying, without words, "So you finally got it, Sue!" Many others have known this "voice," too: Luther, Wesley, Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, my husband’s Aunt Louise, and Raymond, a recovering addict in my town. Have you heard God that way? "Is that you, God? Speak, for I’m listening."

I’ve learned that God may be pretty blunt in answering our prayers. Indeed, God asked Samuel to announce punishment for evildoers, news that would make "the ears of anyone who hears of it tingle" (3:11). I’ve heard God’s blunt voice, too. It happened one day when I seemed to think I was God. I was stomping along a path in a park and telling God exactly what should be done in a certain situation, adding that all the other fools working on the problem were dead wrong. As clearly as I could hear the red cardinals calling to one another, I heard a voice say, "Leave it alone."

"Wait a second," was my immediate response. "Is that you, God? If it is, I want you to say, ‘Good girl, Susan. You’re right, as always.’" But then the voice spoke those plain words again: "Leave it alone." In that moment I knew that it was God’s answer. And so I did "leave it alone," and that was the right thing to do. "Is that you, God? You’re not saying what I want you to say. But speak to me and I’ll listen, however reluctantly."

Other people and dreams
It may be other people who speak blunt words of admonition or eloquent words of support on behalf of God. Sue Setzer and Walter Bouman, in their marvelous book, What Shall I Say? Discerning God’s Call to Ministry (Augsburg Fortress, 1995), advise us to turn to others when we wonder if we are called to the ministry of the gospel. They suggest that we ask them, "Do you see in me gifts that God could use? Do you think God is calling me to ministry?" Other questions may well be ours. "Should I move?" "Am I supposed to intervene in a situation?" "Could I volunteer to do that?" "Would leaving be the best thing?"

The tricky part of this process is that we have to listen to and ponder prayerfully the answers of the wise and trustworthy people whom we ask. Their advice may be unwelcome. What we hear may be God’s "no" to our own plans. Or it may be advice that is stunningly affirming. Martin Luther spoke of the mutual conversation and consolation of the brothers and sisters. God may be speaking through them. "Is that you, God? Are you talking to me through Joseph and Ron, Marion and Jeanette? Speak, then, for I’m trying to listen."

I believe there is another way that God may answer our prayers. For more than a decade I dreamed that I was in charge of a baby—and I kept losing track of her or forgetting about her. I hated this nightmare. Each time I had it, my sleep was troubled by feelings of panic, hysteria, guilt, and shame. I knew why I dreamed it. After many years, one of our daughters was able to tell us that she had been molested when she was very young. My shock and tremendous sadness for her were quickly matched by feelings of anger and guilt. I hadn’t been able to do the most basic thing any mother is called to do, keep a child safe.

In the dream the baby is supposed to be in my care, but I mess up, night after night. But one night, I dreamed that the child I was taking care of was Jesus. This dream was a happy one, because this time I was taking good care of the little one. Others in my dream affirmed that for me. "Was that you, God, speaking to my feelings of failure and dismay, giving me another chance?" I think so, for with that dream, the bad dreams stopped.

I believe that God uses our dreams to speak to us, just as he used the dreams of Joseph, Pilate’s wife, and Paul to speak to them. Sleep may disarm our defenses. Our slumbering minds may be able to let go of our waking reluctance and allow us to say, "Speak, LORD. Your servant is listening."

How do we know?
But how do we figure out that the voice we hear, the dream we dream, the burning within us is truly God’s voice, God’s dream, God’s presence? A colleague once told a group of us about his experience when he worked in a group home for people dealing with mental illness. Residents would often tell him that they were either Jesus or God. My colleague learned to reply, "Then, what have you to tell me?" The tirade or disturbing visions or profanity that would follow would let him know that the resident was no more Jesus than is the foul–mouthed person who sits behind us at a movie or the rude one who cuts into line at the grocery store.

One day, a woman announced her divinity to my colleague, and he answered with his question about her message. She then proclaimed to him life-giving words about God’s grace and wisdom. "Is that you, God?" It just might be!

How do we know? We have a yardstick by which to measure whether God is involved. This measuring stick is the good news of Jesus Christ, news called out to us from an empty blood–stained cross and a sunlit tomb strewn with grave cloths. The words on the measuring stick are the words with which Jesus answered the scribe who asked which commandment was first. Love God, love your neighbor, love yourselves, Jesus said, and do this with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. (See Mark 12:28–31.) If the voice we hear, the understandings that flow into our burning hearts, the words spoken to us by our sisters and brothers in Christ, the dreams that haunt us don’t reverberate with these three things together — loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves — then maybe we’re hearing from something (or someone) other than God.

Listen, my sisters, when you pray. Talk with others when you are uncertain about what you’ve heard. Ponder your dreams. Open your life to wonder when your heart tingles. And don’t be afraid to say, "Speak, God, your servant is listening." You may miss the gift of a lifetime if you keep silent.

The Rev. Sue Gamelin and her husband, Tim, are the pastors of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in High Point, N.C. She wrote Lutheran Woman Today’s 2005–2006 Bible study, Act Boldly in the Fruit of the Spirit.