From an interview with Dallas Willard -
Comment: In your book (Hearing God) you talk about the paradox of guidance. What are the elements of that paradox?
Willard: Well, the paradox has to do with the fact that on the one hand we talk so much about God's guidance, and we especially want our leaders to be guided by God. Yet, when it comes down to us, we do the humble-mumble and say, "Well, you know, not me. I'm not big enough, or important enough for God to bother with."
It's that combination: on the one hand we expect guidance, and we desperately need it, but on the other hand we're not prepared to receive it and we think it wouldn't really be appropriate. You have to be "kicked upstairs" to become a so-called "full-time Christian worker" for it to be appropriate.
Generally people can't deal with this at all. Christians can't. There's that little joke about: "When we speak to God we call it prayer, and when he speaks to us we call it schizophrenia." It's a curious ambivalence that's driven by our deep need as finite human beings.
Comment: It's almost like that story about Joan of Arc. When her accusers said, "Those voices you hear, they're just your imagination," she answered, "Yes. I know. That's how God speaks to me."
Willard:That's a very good line. It's by using our natural faculties in a certain way that God speaks to us. In a way, the paradox is the same as in the Incarnation - it's the union of God with human beings in a relationship. The Incarnation (God taking on full humanity in Jesus Christ) is much more than that, but it is that.
Comment: In your book (Hearing God) you talk about the paradox of guidance. What are the elements of that paradox?
Willard: Well, the paradox has to do with the fact that on the one hand we talk so much about God's guidance, and we especially want our leaders to be guided by God. Yet, when it comes down to us, we do the humble-mumble and say, "Well, you know, not me. I'm not big enough, or important enough for God to bother with."
It's that combination: on the one hand we expect guidance, and we desperately need it, but on the other hand we're not prepared to receive it and we think it wouldn't really be appropriate. You have to be "kicked upstairs" to become a so-called "full-time Christian worker" for it to be appropriate.
Generally people can't deal with this at all. Christians can't. There's that little joke about: "When we speak to God we call it prayer, and when he speaks to us we call it schizophrenia." It's a curious ambivalence that's driven by our deep need as finite human beings.
Comment: It's almost like that story about Joan of Arc. When her accusers said, "Those voices you hear, they're just your imagination," she answered, "Yes. I know. That's how God speaks to me."
Willard:That's a very good line. It's by using our natural faculties in a certain way that God speaks to us. In a way, the paradox is the same as in the Incarnation - it's the union of God with human beings in a relationship. The Incarnation (God taking on full humanity in Jesus Christ) is much more than that, but it is that.
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