Hope & Question

hearing

Sat straight up in bed around 2:45a pretty much wide awake from kind of a restless sleep. No reason in particular (for either the restless sleep or being wide awake) I don't suppose (besides the usual...uncomfortability of knee, too many things about which my thinker is thinking, etc.).
So I picked up Dallas Willard's "Hearing God," a book I've been reading off and on for quite some time now.
In the chapter I'm reading now, Willard puts forth that hearing the 'still small voice' (think Samuel as a kid) is the main subjective way that God speaks to us and it seems that he's saying that it's the way God would prefer to speak to us and that it is the most important way that God speaks to us.
I'm wrestling with this one. Probably because of what I've been taught, how I was raised, etc., I place quite a high importance on the Word. But I have learned and felt in recent years that it's more relational than even the Word and that God is an intimate, personal God, so why wouldn't be the case that the preferred method for him to speak is in the 'still small voice.'
I guess I struggle with even the idea that there is a hierarchy of the ways in which God speaks to His children. I also struggle with the fact that the 'still small voice' is so easily not heard or overlooked or mistaken for something else because of how I choose to live my life, that I get pretty freaked out at the idea of God trying to speak to me and me missing out because of my selfishness. I wonder even when I ask God to speak, if He does and it goes unnoticed by yours truly and so maybe that's why I'm getting the 'keep asking' Scriptures...cause I haven't heard yet. So if that's the case, God I beg you to make yourself clear, whether loud or soft. I pray that I would be quiet enough (is that the waiting part or is that something altogether different?) and be resting in You, focused on You, that I would hear what You have to say. Thank you that You want to say stuff to me, that You desire a covenant relationship. May I be always focused on that...create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit. Don't cast me away from Your presence, please God.
And may I live in grace so as not to go insane regarding aforementioned fears...

posted by Loren @ 3:47 AM