Academic and professional arenas provide many challenges and opportunities. Over many years spent in them, I have found it key to listen for God’s guidance and inspiration—to reason from a spiritual basis of knowing that the divine Mind, God, is always present to guide me in doing my best. I have consistently found we can trust God’s voice to bring Mind’s ideas to us.
The Bible is the best authority we have for teaching us the value of prayerfully listening to God’s voice. From Abraham hearing and obeying the voice of God in establishing a new culture that challenged the world, to Moses hearing God speak at the burning bush and being inspired to rescue the children of Israel from Egypt, to the many later prophets who responded to God’s instructions, the divine messages received were essential to these individuals in their life missions, protecting them and profoundly affecting the world around them. Mary Baker Eddy describes their experience in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man” (p. 308). Above all others, Christ Jesus always responded to God’s guidance, felt through his innate oneness with the Father. What role models we have as we strive to acknowledge and demonstrate our relation to God!
We can learn from the examples of the biblical prophets and from the Exemplar, Jesus, by appreciating that each individual recognized and listened to God’s ever-present, ever-guiding voice.
