Hearing Heart
by Hannah Hurnard
Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 1986. First published in 1978. 139 pages.
Starred Review
I read and loved all Hannah Hurnard’s books when I was in high school, including this one. This little book was a lovely choice for bringing on my vacation. My usual quiet times include reading bits out of several books — for vacation, I read a chapter each day out of this book.
This book reminds the reader of the importance of walking with God. Long before John Eldredge’s book Walking with God, I read about listening to God’s voice, as God’s people in the Bible did.
The book is autobiographical, outlining Hannah Hurnard’s journey, including missionary work in Palestine before, during, and after World War I. This journey included some steps that looked crazy, but she walked in obedience, and God did amazing things.
Here are some things the author says in her concluding chapter:
It did seem perfectly natural to suppose from the teaching in the Bible and our Lord’s own sayings that all heard his voice in the same way, and that there were not some endowed with a special and mysterious faculty for hearing which was not granted to others. The least child of God can hear in the same way, and be sure that it is the voice of God speaking to him, as any holy man of old, provided he knows and practices the one principle by which the spirit of man can develop a hearing faculty.
Again, this does not mean that we shall ever become infallible or that all our thoughts at all times will be from God. Far from it, especially, of course, at the beginning of our Christian experience. In matters of Christian truth and understanding of the Scriptures, we learn slowly and by stages; a hearing heart, too, may in some cases develop more quickly than a seeing understanding. Every new obedience, however, leads to a fuller understanding, but is always accompanied by an ever-increasing realization that there is infinitely more beyond our present ability to comprehend, and that there is an ever-present danger of becoming self-confident and being dogmatic to others. Nothing deafens a hearing heart more quickly than unwillingness to keep open to further light.
The great principle of the hearing heart is that we become as little children, utterly dependent and always ready to obey. We have to learn to obey his guidance in small personal matters, before we can receive and understand more of his will and purposes.
I like the practicality of this paragraph:
The very fact that spiritual hearing can so easily be confused with imagination is a great safeguard against spiritual pride and ought to develop in us holy cautiousness and humble dependence. But to insist that unusual guidance is only imagination, and that real guidance is really using one’s common sense, did seem to me extraordinary. For most of the guidance which came to me in those early years did not make common sense at all, and generally involved me in the risk of appearing an absolute fool in the eyes of others. Of course, common sense and all one’s intellectual faculties, as well as the experience and wisdom of others, are all part of the wonderful equipment and means by which God does reveal to us his will.
And here’s her final offering to the reader:
So in loving sympathy and understanding with all who long to find a deeper reality in their spiritual life and to know what it is to be drawn into intimate, daily communion and fellowship with the Lord and Savior himself, I would joyfully and humbly share these experiences, praying that he who is so real and so full of understanding love will use them to help others into the radiant happiness of those who can say.
This book offers lovely encouragement to Christians who want to learn to listen to and hear God’s voice.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/hearing_heart.html
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