I’ll be honest: I want nothing in life as intensely as I want to commune with the One who made me. Commune is precisely the right word—it means “to experience a deep emotional or spiritual relationship with”. Now my conservative Christian theology discourages going to great lengths to work up an emotional/spiritual experience, and I agree with this cautious stance. Emotions aren’t generally to be trusted, and are no basis upon which to run any aspect of one’s life.

Still, I really, really want to experience my God. I was, after all, created for this very reason. But the reality is that I live in an extremely noisy world, and it’s nigh on to impossible to be still enough, long enough to sense His presence. God taught us this truth in one of the odd stories about Elijah. In 1 Kings 19:11-13 God bade Elijah stand by while He sent a mighty wind to break up the rocks all around Elijah, an earthquake to tumble them about, and a fire to scorch them all to charcoal. The writer tells us God wasn’t in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. Then God spoke to Elijah in “a still, small voice”, or as the note in my Bible says, “a delicate whispering voice”.

Email, radio, TV, music, phone calls, magazines, blogs, news, facebook, family …who can hear a delicate whispering voice? Here is where my heart squeezes tears of gratitude into my eyes for the gift given us: the Word. God’s voice and His tender and urgent messages for me are recorded in the sixty-six books of my Bible, right here at my elbow, available day and night. Not everyone has this gift yet, (and please do all you can to support those working to get it to those who don’t), but I do have it.

Here’s the rub: I usually only sit and read those messages for about half an hour a day, but I want to be hearing God all through my day. And hey, it’s noisy in my head, too. Even with no music playing, the TV off, no one home but me, and (theoretically) the computer in a different room, there’s too much banging around in my brain, drowning out His words. Grocery lists and inane song lyrics bounce around with regrets about a phone call I should have made, and vague worry about that skin spot I should have looked at, and auto-pay is great, but is there enough in the bank to cover the Mastercard bill, and what am I making for dinner, anyway?

I need a way to hear God’s voice through all that static, and I know what it is. Ready?

Memorize Scripture.

Did you think it was going to be a new secret way to hear God? I don’t believe in new secret ways. I believe in the old paths, and clear back in 1000 B.C., King David was writing songs about how great it is to have God’s Word hidden in your heart. The verses I do have memorized provide deep comfort and firm guidance when they pop into my head.

But I want more. I am determined to add to my treasure store. The more Scripture I have in my head, the more frequently I’ll hear His words instead of the background chatter. Jesus says “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Jesus is the Logos, the Word made flesh. I will take the time, and make the effort, and succeed in hiding the Word in my heart, so that I will hear Him whispering to me all the day long. Sounds like communion to me.