We may hear the voice of God in a biblical passage which comes home to us personally, in the remembrance of a remark made by a friend, in a question which we put to ourselves, in a thought which comes to us when in his presence, sometimes when we least expect it.
I always remember one New Year’s Eve. I had left my wife at home in order to spend the moment of midnight, in accordance with tradition, standing in the Cathedral square with the uncle who had brought me up. When I got back I found my wife overwhelmed and transformed.
‘I have suddenly realized for the first time the greatness of God!’ she told me.
As the bells rang out, telling of the inexorable and endless march of time, it had been borne in upon her that God was infinitely greater than she had ever imagined. The voice of God had spoken to her through the voice of the bells, and she had answered. Her answer could be read in her radiant face. It was a reply so clear and true that I in my turn was touched by it.
The greatest event in life had taken place: the personal encounter of Creator and creature, the dialogue between the voice of God, so great that it makes itself heard in every earthly sound, without any one of them ever sufficing completely to express it, and the voice of man, so weak that nothing he can say is adequate to the reply. It is an incredible dialogue, so disproportionate are the participants—and yet they are like, for God willed man to be ‘in his image’ (Gen. 1.27); they are both persons, capable of engaging together in dialogue.
We were very weary, my wife and I, at the time. For years I had devoted myself energetically to church work, where as everyone knows, one is always coming up against problems which seem trivial indeed compared to the task to be accomplished. And now, of a sudden, God was showing us his greatness, calling us out of the tangle of sterile arguments in which I had let myself be caught. During the year that followed he led us from experience to experience, to a renewing of our whole personal and professional life, calling us from ecclesiastical activity to spiritual ministry.
Tags: Paul Tournier, Religious experience, The Meaning of Persons
