The Power of A Whisper.

Hearing G.o.d. Having the Guts to Respond.

Bill Hybels.

To d.i.c.k and Betsy DeVos.

and Ron and Sharon VanderPol.

Only on the other side will the four of you know how much your friendship and support have meant to the Hybels family and to the global Willow family.

FOREWORD BY.

WAYNE CORDEIRO.

IN THE 1970S, BEFORE DIGITAL GUITAR TUNERS WERE ON THE market, I was a budding musician (who, after a few decades, is still waiting to bloom), preparing for a song-set at a youth convention. Tuning your guitar in those days required matching tones on one string with another. It's not a difficult task, but another band slated to perform on the same program was really rocking their sound check. My meager Martin was no match for the muscular Marshall amps of these adrenaline-fueled screamers. I had to bend my ear increasingly closer to the sound hole with the loudest plucks I could manage, and yet the blare of the competing system still overpowered my best attempts. Until, that is, I resorted to laying my ear flat on the spruce top of my instrument. Then, no matter how blatantly the rockers attacked, the tender strains of my acoustic guitar could be heard-readily, effectively, sweetly.

It's a lot like that with G.o.d. When it comes to being heard by his children, our Father does not compete, nor does he contend for our undivided attention. Often he delivers nothing more than a nudge-easy to dismiss if you don't recognize the Source. He whispers, soft undertones that invite us to bend an ear-or an entire life-until it is pressed flat against his lips.

THE EARLIEST RECOLLECTION I HAVE OF HEARING FROM G.o.d occurred when I was in the seventh grade, a young Catholic boy living with my family in j.a.pan. Back then I knew my catechism, but I didn't know the person of Christ. I knew that G.o.d was "out there," but I had not yet learned the sound of his voice.

It was around that time that I went with a missionary couple who were family friends to visit an adjacent city for a few days. As I watched them work with a group of helpless and hopeless orphans, I sensed a divine message from above: "This is what you will be doing, Wayne. You will be helping people the rest of your life."

Still today, I can remember sitting in that little orphanage, listening to the conversations, observing the mutual love, enjoying the thrill that comes from meeting another person's deepest need, knowing that from that moment on, my life would drastically change. And over time, as I surrendered myself to Christ, I would learn that it was G.o.d's voice I had heard that day.

There is a frequency that your life was designed to be tuned to, and that frequency is the unique voice of G.o.d. Once you learn to hear it-and you actually can get better at picking it out-you will find that your craving for it intensifies as your soul strains to hear more from him. I experienced it first as a twelve-year-old and have known it consistently since: the ability to absorb heaven-sent input fills the sails of your life like nothing or no one else can.

RECENTLY, MY JOURNEY TOOK ME HEADLONG INTO A DEEP pit of burnout. I could no longer hear G.o.d's voice and believed earnestly that my heart for ministry had collapsed. My future was foggy, faded and dim. But during that season of near silence I learned firsthand the power of a whisper. I learned to perceive the sound of stillness, and in the midst of that stillness I finally heard G.o.d speak. "Train leaders," he seemed to prompt.

Train leaders? Was G.o.d serious?

I was experiencing the most intense emotional pain I'd ever known, and G.o.d's solution to my overtaxed state was to give me yet another task to accomplish?

What G.o.d knew that I couldn't have known at the time was that his beautiful words of wisdom weren't intended to give me comfort. They were meant to infuse me with confidence, something I sorely needed right then. G.o.d wasn't airlifting me out of my situation; rather than a way out of my pit, he was offering me a way through. He knew that in my heart of hearts I didn't want to abandon my calling, my family, my life. What I really wanted was to be a.s.sured that I still had a kingdom contribution to make. A life of leisure might have appealed to my flesh, but what I was truly and desperately in need of was something that would fuel my soul.

Isaiah 30:21 says, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" I found that during those difficult days, I would hear G.o.d one step at a time. I would start each day soaking up a pa.s.sage from his Word in order to position myself to hear from him again. And once I'd receive a bit of instruction, I would charge off into my day. But at the first slippery slope or craggy precipice I encountered, I'd realize I needed another infusion of help. "I'm at the far edge of the light," I'd admit to G.o.d. And each time, he'd expand the area of illumination so that I could take another small step.

Today, out of sheer obedience to that divine whisper I heard in the pit, I divide my time between my home church in Hawaii and a Bible college in Oregon, where I help shape young men and women into the shepherds of tomorrow. But despite the evident successes that have come by heeding G.o.d's request of me to train leaders, I think the real thing he was after was my life pressed flat against his lips.

It's probably true for you too. You may have picked up this book because you long for circ.u.mstantial input from G.o.d: What are his intentions for your future? Will the job you want ever pan out? What's he going to do about your exasperating spouse? Won't life just once cut you a break? But I believe the real reason you hold these pages in hand is to learn how to lean more on G.o.d.

The Power of a Whisper is the tractor-beam of the soul that prophets of old heard daily. And in the modern-day cacophony of cell phones, email and instant messaging, what will distinguish G.o.d's people from others will be hearing and heeding whispers from above. I hope you'll work through this slowly and thoughtfully. Afford yourself a renewed ability to distinguish the tender timbre of your loving Father's voice. Tune yourself to the only frequency that truly can satisfy your soul. And start today boldly responding as you hear the gentle whispers of G.o.d.

INTRODUCTION.

A FIFTY-YEAR WHISPER-FUELED ODYSSEY.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN AFTER A WEEKEND SERVICE AT our church I looked into a pair of eyes I had not seen in nearly fifty years. "Do you remember me?" the lanky businessman-about my age-asked, tears pooling in the bottom of his lids. Truthfully, I did not.

He offered a few clues, and it all came flooding back. I remembered not only his name but the names of six other boys who had shared a cabin with us at the summer camp of our youth.

We caught up for a few moments, trying to cram five decades of updates into a terribly brief span of time. Then, as he took in the s.p.a.cious auditorium surrounding him, he looked me square in the face and asked, "How did all of this happen?"

I began to describe how we had started Willow Creek Community Church in the mid-1970s in a rented movie theater, and how, many years later, we'd purchased property and broken ground on permanent facilities.

"No," my former cabin mate interrupted, "I didn't mean how did this building happen. I meant how did your life turn out the way it did?"

He went on to say that I probably wouldn't enjoy hearing how some of the lives of the rest of those guys from camp wound up-and that he surely wasn't going to bore me with the details of his own life's saga. "But frankly," he said, "I never would have guessed that your story would have unfolded like this." He eyed the line of people still waiting to greet me and then suggested we catch up over dinner sometime. We exchanged a warm handshake, and he was gone.

Later that night in bed, I pondered how I would help my childhood camp mate understand the truth about the unlikely course my life has taken. How could I tell this savvy, cynical business guy that my fifty-year odyssey unfolded as it has because of a series of whispers from G.o.d? Inaudible whispers, at that. I imagined the mere use of such language would shorten our upcoming dinner considerably, but no other explanation exists. My entire journey comes down to a series of unplanned promptings from heaven that have charted a course for my life even I never could have foreseen.

I have chosen to wait thirty-five years before writing a book about how G.o.d's whispers have affected my life-hesitant in part because of the controversy this subject tends to arouse. Even today, when I make public reference to the whispers of G.o.d, I barely make it off the stage before half a dozen people approach to remind me that ax murderers often defend their homicides by claiming, "G.o.d told me to do it." Conservative Christians question my orthodoxy when I describe my experiences with the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and secularists either are humored or quietly tell their spouses that Hybels has lost his marbles. Or both.

Still, I've come to believe that hearing the quiet whisper of the transcendent G.o.d is one of the most extraordinary privileges in all of life-and potentially the most transforming dynamic in the Christian faith. When people hear from heaven, they are rarely the same again. When the sovereign G.o.d chooses to communicate with someone-whether eight, eighteen or eighty years old-that person's world is rocked. Without a hint of exaggeration, I can boldly declare that G.o.d's low-volume whispers have saved me from a life of sure boredom and self-destruction. They have redirected my path, rescued me from temptation and reenergized me during some of my deepest moments of despair. They inspire me to live my life at what boaters call "wide-open throttle"-full on!

So, why go to the trouble of penning the words in the chapters that follow? Because I firmly believe that G.o.d whispers to you too. If you lower the ambient noise of your life and listen expectantly for those whispers of G.o.d, your ears will hear them. And when you follow their lead, your world will be rocked. Let's get started.

BILL HYBELS.

South Haven, Michigan.

August 2009.

CHAPTER 1.

SAMUEL'S EAR.

I GREW UP IN A CHRISTIAN FAMILY AND AS A KID WENT TO A Christian school, which admittedly had its advantages and its disadvantages. As an adult who now appreciates having received a st.u.r.dy spiritual foundation, I have greater appreciation for one of the clear plusses: Each day before recess, my cla.s.smates and I would have to sit and listen to our teacher read a short story from the Bible. The better we listened, the faster she read-and the faster she read the sooner we'd be out on the baseball fields. With that as my motivation, I was all ears every day.

One such day, when I was in the second grade of that school in Kalamazoo, Michigan, my teacher read a story from the Old Testament about a man named Eli-an older worker in the temple-and a young boy named Samuel, whom he mentored. As the story goes, one night after Samuel had gone to bed, he thought he heard Eli calling for him. He got out of bed, ran to where Eli was lying down and said, "I heard you call. Here I am."1 Eli looked at young Samuel, confusion creasing the old man's forehead. "I didn't call you," Eli said. "Go back to bed."2 Samuel, of course, complied. But moments later, he heard his name again. "Samuel!" the voice called. Samuel rose from his bed, hurried to Eli's side and said, "Here I am; you called me."

Again Eli told the boy he was wrong. Again Samuel returned to his bed.

When it happened a third time, the old man finally realized what was going on. "Samuel, maybe G.o.d is trying to get a message to you," Eli explained. "Go back and lie down. If the voice calls again, say, 'Speak, G.o.d. I am your servant, ready to listen.' "3 And so, the text says, "Samuel returned to his bed,"4 where soon thereafter he heard his name yet again. "Samuel! Samuel!" the Lord called, to which Samuel replied on cue, "Speak, for your servant is listening."5 The message that the Lord then spoke to young Samuel was a prophetic promise that would radically impact an entire nation. But the content of that message is not what struck me as I sat in my wooden grade-school desk. What struck me was the fact that the content got conveyed through the ears and lips of a little boy!

The recess bell rang. Miss Van Solen stood, and my cla.s.smates made a rush for the room's single door. Typically I was the first kid on the field, picking teams and filling positions and generally organizing the sport of the day. But not today. Today I found myself glued to my seat. The story she'd read had leveled me for reasons I didn't fully understand.

When the room had emptied save for Miss Van Solen and me, I eased out of my desk, stuffed my hands deep in my pockets and walked up to my teacher.

"What is it, Billy?" she asked-probably fearing the worst, given that it was recess and I was still indoors.

"Miss Van Solen," I said as my throat began to choke up, "does G.o.d still speak to little boys?"

She smiled and let out a relieved sigh. Placing her two hands on my small shoulders, she looked me square in the eye.

"Oh, yes, Billy," she said. "He most certainly does. And if you learn to quiet yourself and listen, he even will speak to you. I am sure of it."

I felt a swell of release as I considered for the first time in my seven years of life that perhaps Christianity was more than ancient rules, creeds and other stiff-necked ways. Maybe G.o.d really did speak. And maybe he'd speak to me.

Satisfied by her answer, I turned to head out to the baseball fields. "Billy," Miss Van Solen called after me, "I have something for you." She reached into the top drawer of her desk. "For some reason I've kept this poem here, but I think you should have it now. It might help you, given what we talked about today." She slipped a folded piece of paper into my palm, and with her knowing nod I was dismissed.

AS I PULLED ON MY PAJAMAS THAT NIGHT, MY MIND KEPT drifting back to the idea that maybe G.o.d would someday speak to me. I rummaged through the pockets of my school pants and pulled out the paper Miss Van Solen had given me. Opening its folds and flattening out its creases, I discovered a poem-words about having Samuel's ears to hear G.o.d, every single day. I read the poem and then read it again. I read it a third time, and then figured I might as well memorize the thing. And so I did.

The next day just before recess, Miss Van Solen read a Bible story that meant absolutely nothing to me. I faked attentiveness, knowing this would help my baseball game come sooner, and when the beloved bell finally sounded its alarm, I flew out of my desk and lunged for the cla.s.sroom door.

"Not so fast, Billy," Miss Van Solen's singsong voice rang out. I felt my shirt collar caught in her grip. As my friends pushed past either side of me and headed out to recess, Miss Van Solen asked, "What did you think of the poem I gave you?"

"I really liked it," I said.

"You mean you actually read it?" she asked.

"I memorized it," I said with a straight face and a shrug.

"No way," she said, flabbergasted.

"Yes, way, I did," I countered.

She called my bluff. "Can you say it for me?"

I took up the dare.

"Oh, give me Samuel's ear," I said, "an open ear, O Lord, alive and quick to hear each whisper of Thy Word; like him to answer to Thy call, and to obey Thee first of all."

As I finished my recitation, I thought Miss Van Solen might faint dead away, right then and there. As a pride-infused smile beamed across her face, again I felt those two hands on my small frame: "You keep listening for G.o.d to speak, Billy," she said, "and I believe he will use your life in a very special way."

After that experience, I tried to listen for the whispers of G.o.d. I didn't do it well enough or often enough, but as I walked down the road of my young life and faced the right-or-wrong choices that all adolescent boys face, sometimes I'd recall that rhyming refrain.

Oh! give me Samuel's ear, An open ear, O Lord, Alive and quick to hear Each whisper of Thy Word; Like him to answer to Thy call And to obey Thee first of all.6 Each time the plea for Samuel's ear floated through my mind, it was as if I could hear G.o.d cheering me on-at least as much as I understood "G.o.d" at the time. I'd be standing at the crossroads of the paths marked yes and no and would sense him say, "I'm rooting for you, Billy! Take the high road here; you'll never regret your yes." It shouldn't have surprised me that G.o.d's way would prove best. But each time I'd head off on the high road and feel the good feelings that his way always brings, I'd look heavenward and with a shake of my head think, "G.o.d, you were right again!"

As I grew into the teenaged version of myself, an insatiable craving for adventure grew inside me too. My dad had discerned a thrill-seeking temperament in me from an early age, and he knew that if he didn't do something to channel all that energy in a positive direction, I'd likely wind up wrecking my life. Before I was even ten, he sent me off all alone on a cross-country train bound for Aspen, Colorado. Evidently he wanted me to learn how to ski, which would have been fine had he actually been present on that trip to teach me. The real goal, I would later surmise, was learning how to navigate the big, blue world around me. And navigate it I would.

When I was sixteen, my admittedly eccentric father came home from work one day and announced, "Billy, I think you ought to see even more of the world." It was the middle of the school year, a reality I felt sure my incredulous expression conveyed. Reading my expression, he added with a grin, "Obviously, you must never allow school to interfere with your education."

Clearly we wouldn't want that.

The following week, I boarded a plane headed for Europe. For eight weeks straight-again, all by myself-I traipsed from Scandinavia to the Middle East, and then headed for Nairobi, Kenya.

Having no idea what else to do when I arrived in Nairobi, I decided to take a walk. It was a decision that-five minutes in-I deeply and desperately regretted. I began down a bustling dirt road, and as I rounded the first corner, I came face-to-face with a level of human suffering I hadn't known could exist. I peered down the street and took in scores upon scores of people leaning against broken-down, battered buildings. The effects of rampant disease and malnutrition were obvious; I breathed in the open-guttered stench; I felt the staleness, the thickness of the air, and I knew I'd never again be the same.

As I made my way around a row of gaunt, downcast faces, my stomach started to lurch. "I'm a Dutch kid from Kalamazoo, Michigan," I thought. "What am I doing here?"

Turning the next corner, I saw a boy about my age. The leprosy that racked this part of the city had found its way to this young kid. The bottom half of his arm was missing, and on the nub of his upper arm he'd rested a tiny tin cup. I took in his situation, trying not to be too obvious about it. Our eyes met, and he uttered a single word.

"Penny?"

I thrust my hands in my pockets but discovered I had nothing for a situation like this. My fingers found the stiff, rounded corners of my dad's American Express card-useless to this kid-and then a wadded up stack of traveler's checks that were tucked around a folded airline ticket for wherever I was headed next.

"Sorry," I mumbled, showing him my empty hands. Embarra.s.sed, I hurriedly stepped away.

When I was safely out of the young man's sight, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me back to my hotel. Rushing inside my room, I emptied my pockets, fell to my knees and buried my head in the rug. I began to pray, although I had little relationship with the One I was praying to-and no idea what to say. All I knew was that I had never before seen suffering like I'd seen on the streets that day, and the only person I figured would know what to do about it was the G.o.d I'd heard hates suffering too.

As I sat crouched there, tears streaming down my hot cheeks, I heard an inaudible whisper from G.o.d: "If you will allow me to guide your life, one day I will use you to relieve some of the pain you see."

I quickly sealed the pact. "That would be great," I said to the silence all around. "That would be absolutely fine with me."

The following summer, I surrendered my life to Christ. I had been going to a Christian camp in Wisconsin since I was in single digits, but it wasn't until I stood on its familiar hillside at age seventeen that I finally connected with G.o.d for real. In the perfect stillness of a late-night hour, the words of t.i.tus 3:5-a verse that I'd been told to memorize as a boy in Sunday school-crept back into my consciousness. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."7 In a flash of divine insight, I heard G.o.d's still, small voice: "You will never earn your way to my approval, Bill, but it is yours without condition right now." His whisper reflected a depth and purity of love that was so rich and real, I wondered if I was making the whole experience up.

I rushed back to my cabin, awakened my friends and dragged them all out of bed. "I don't have language to describe what just happened in my heart," I panted, "but I took a step of faith and invited G.o.d into my life-for real. For good. He came in, and I feel different on the inside!"

My groggy cabin mates glared at me with eyes that said this was a no-good reason to interrupt their sleep, but I knew the truth in my heart. I hadn't made up that hilltop experience. The decision I'd made that night was undeniable, irreversible and good. I've never looked back.

SHORTLY AFTER MY LATE-NIGHT GRACE-ATTACK, I BEGAN TO wrestle with how seriously I was going to take my newfound faith. I grasped that Jesus had died for me on a cross, forgiven my sins and promised me a place in heaven. I even gathered that it would be a good thing to invest a few minutes a day reading my Bible, saying some prayers and perhaps getting involved with a church. But in the midst of all my low-balling, I kept hearing about people my age who were going all-out for G.o.d. Fully committed and truly devoted, they were allowing their faith to affect things like their morals, their relationships, their money management and in some cases even their career path, which seemed a little over-the-top to me.

G.o.d had whispered into my boyhood years, helping me learn to act on what is right. He had whispered again to me in a slum in Kenya, encouraging me to pay attention to suffering wherever I see it. He had whispered to me in Wisconsin, asking me to give him the whole of my life. On and on these whispers continued, and thankfully as G.o.d was speaking more regularly, I grew increasingly aware of my need for input from above.

I wanted to live wide open to G.o.d, but I couldn't reconcile my sin. The truth about me is that for as long as I can remember, I have possessed an awe-inspiring, southbound gravitational pull that makes me rationalize doing something that is wrong as though somehow it were right. I am p.r.o.ne to justify my behavior when I cross lines that clearly I should not cross. I want to stay put when G.o.d asks me to move, to go right when G.o.d suggests a left-hand turn, and to speak my mind when I sense silence would serve me better.

He prodded me toward being a young man of my word, toward releasing judgment and revenge-seeking. "Love your enemies," he'd whisper, just when things were heating up. "Never return evil for evil, but return evil with good."

"Seriously, G.o.d?" I wondered.