How Does God Speak to You?

 How does God speak to you?  What language do you and God use?  What energizes and excites you?

God often speaks to me in words and ideas.  I know this because words and ideas energize  me.  Another thing that energizes me is learning new things.  

How does God speak to you?  Music?  Pictures?  Nature?  Animals?  People? Something else?  What energizes and excites you?  God is there, St. Ignatius said.

We continue our series on Prayer this Sunday with Psalm 42 (below). When I prayed it one morning I was drawn immediately to Verse 8. It seemed so personal to me.  I felt comforted.  Why, I wondered?  So  I looked carefully at the words:

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

Then I looked carefully at the words of the other verses, and noticed that Verse 8 is the only verse that contains the word “love”.  No wonder I felt comforted!

I noticed something else.  “LORD” is only used in Verse 8, and it is written with all capital letters.   The other verses use “God”, and only the first letter is capitalized.  What’s the difference, I wondered?

Many of you might know this already, but I learned something this week.  In the original Hebrew,  the text in Verse 8 of Psalm 42 shifts from the general word God (Elohim), to using God’s personal, holy name, YHWH, which many bible translations translate to LORD in English.  Wow.   That makes the love personal too!

Now I’m wondering about another thing too.  How is knowing about the difference between Elohim and YHWH going to change my reading of the Bible in the future?

Psalm 42 NRSV

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
    so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
    the face of God?

My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me continually,
    “Where is your God?”

These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng
    and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
    a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep
    at the thunder of your torrents;
all your waves and your billows
    have gone over me.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
    because the enemy oppresses me?”

As with a deadly wound in my body,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
    “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
    my help and my God.

One of the great discoveries of Ignatius is that God is in the deeper desires of your heart. This is not the superficial stuff, e.g. the desire for comfort, ease, or quick fame, but rather the long-term attraction you feel toward something that is genuinely life-giving. This means paying attention to what energises you and also what deadens you. Where do you really come alive in your life right now?   - Brendan McManus, SJ