What Do You Hear the Spirit Saying?

I've had a few conversations this week that started me thinking (again) about the way we listen to the Holy Spirit. Add that to the ongoing (and increasingly noisy) conversation in my own tribe about the upcoming called General Conference of the United Methodist Church, and it's caused several thoughts to begin rumbling around in my head. They have sort of boiled down to this one question: how do we know when it's the Holy Spirit speaking and not just our own desires, wants and preferences (or last night's pizza)?

In my own tribe's wrestling, arguing and maligning of each other, all sides (because there really aren't "just two sides") claim to hear the voice of the Spirit while at the same time accuse each other of not really listening to the Spirit. Some groups believe the Spirit calls us to "new things," including adopting new ideas, practices, beliefs and doctrines in the name of "staying relevant." Other groups believe the Spirit calls us to "keep to the old ways," holding onto the faith once delivered and remaining true to what the church has said for centuries. (And these are oversimplifications, to be sure, as there are a lot of viewpoints and opinions in between each of these.) These two viewpoints are mutually exclusive, it seems. They cannot both be true. So how do we know where the Spirit is speaking?

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is from Isaiah, who is of course not writing or speaking to us. He is talking to the ancient Jews, the people of God, in the midst of their punishment for being disobedient. They have rejected God's message and turned their backs on their creator, but he is giving them another chance. A new hope! Isaiah says, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it'" (30:21). There are many things I love about that verse, but what I notice is that the voice (the Spirit) isn't saying, "there are many ways to walk that will please God. This is THE way. Walk in it." So hearing the Spirit involves finding THE way. Again, we can't all be right.

When Jesus was describing the work of the Holy Spirit, in the hours before his death and going away, he told his disciples that one of the Spirit's jobs was to remind them (and us) of what he said. Jesus put it this way: "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:26). If we're listening to the voice of the Spirit, it will be harmony with what Jesus said, the same Jesus who promised that nothing in the Law would disappear, that he came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it (Matthew 5:17-20).

How do we know we're listening to the voice of the Spirit instead of our own preferences? Granted, this is a big question that deserves a lot longer response, but at the very least it seems to me the Spirit will speak to us in ways consistent with Jesus and consistent with the voices of poets, prophets and patriarchs—the ones Jesus often quoted, the ones whose words Jesus came to fulfill. In other words, the Spirit will speak in resonance with the Scriptures. If what we're "hearing" is in line with that, we are in safe territory.