{"id":63,"date":"2016-03-12T22:35:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T22:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twolistenersdevotionals.wordpress.com\/?page_id=63"},"modified":"2016-03-12T22:35:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T22:35:50","slug":"the-voice-divine","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/?page_id=63","title":{"rendered":"The Voice Divine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:center;\">By<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">One of the &#8220;Two Listeners&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">In the Autumn of 1932, I was sitting in the lounge of an hotel when a visitor, quite unknown, crossed over and, handing me a copy of For Sinners Only, asked if I had read it.\u00a0 I answered &#8220;No,&#8221; and she left it with me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">On returning home, I bought a copy for myself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">I was curiously affected by the book and felt that I wanted all my friends to read it immediately, and actually made out a list of over a hundred people to whom I should have liked to have sent it.\u00a0 Not being rich, this desire had to be content with two copies, which I lent to various people, on whom it seemed to make little effect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">A few months later I read it again.\u00a0 It was then that there came a persistent desire to try to see whether I could get guidance such as A. J. Russell reported, through sharing a quiet time with the friend with whom I was then living.\u00a0 She was a deeply spiritual woman with unwavering faith in the goodness of God and a devout believer in prayer, although her life had not been an easy one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">I was rather skeptical, but, as she agreed, we sat down, pencils and paper in hand and waiting.\u00a0 This was in December 1932.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">My results were entirely negative.\u00a0 Portions of texts came and went, then my mind wandered to ordinary topics.\u00a0 I brought it back again and again, but with no success.\u00a0 To this day, I cannot get guidance in this way alone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">But with my friend a very wonderful thing happened.\u00a0 From the first, beautiful messages were given to her by our Lord Himself, and every day from then these messages have never failed us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">We felt all unworthy and overwhelmed by the wonder of it, and could hardly realize that we were being taught, trained and encouraged day by day by HIM personally, when millions of souls, far worthier, had to be content with guidance from the Bible, sermons, their Churches, books and other sources.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Certainly we were not in any way psychic or advanced in spiritual growth, but just very ordinary human beings, who had had more suffering and worry than the majority and who had known tragedy after tragedy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The tender understanding of some of Our Lord&#8217;s messages was at times almost heart-breaking; but His loving reproofs would leave no hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Always, and this daily, He insisted that we should be channels of Love, Joy and Laughter in His broken world.\u00a0 This was the Man of Sorrows in a new aspect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">We, or rather I, found this command very difficult to obey, although to others it might have been simple.\u00a0 To laugh, to cheer others, to be always joyful when days were pain-racked, nights tortured by chronic insomnia, when poverty and almost insupportable worry were our daily portions, when prayer went unanswered and God&#8217;s face was veiled and fresh calamities came upon us?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Still came this insistent command to love and laugh and be joy-bringers to the lives we contacted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Disheartened, one of us would gladly have ceased the struggle and passed on to another and happier life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">But He encouraged us daily, saying that He would not break the instruments that He intended to use, that He would not leave the metal in the crucible longer than was necessary for the burning away of the dross.\u00a0 Continually He exhorted us not to lose heart, an spoke of the joy that the future held for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Totally unexpected interpretations of His own words were given.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">An adverse verdict on seeing visions of Himself, which we had hitherto thought granted only to the saintliest and, most strongly stressed of all, the immense power given to two souls praying together in close union and at one in their desire to love and serve Him.\u00a0 As others have proved, &#8220;such a union may, in God&#8217;s hands, accomplish such great things that there certainly will be inimical forces whose purpose it is to mar the friendship.&#8221;\u00a0 And so we found it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Some of the messages are of surprising beauty.\u00a0 The majestic language of December 2nd, the inevitability of suffering in the Christian Life of November 23rd, and the explanation of the practical working of the Law of Supply of December 5th are examples of this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Others may appear disjointed.\u00a0 This is because personal references and repetition have had to be deleted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">So to us this book, which we believe has been guided by our L<\/span>ord Himself, is no ordinary book.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">It is published, after much prayer, to prove that a living Christ speaks today, plans and guides the humblest, that no detail is too insignificant for His attention, that He reveals Himself now as ever as a Humble Servant and Majestic Creator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By One of the &#8220;Two Listeners&#8221; In the Autumn of 1932, I was sitting in the lounge of an hotel when a visitor, quite unknown, crossed over and, handing me a copy of For Sinners Only, asked if I had read it.\u00a0 I answered &#8220;No,&#8221; and she left it with me. On returning home, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/?page_id=63\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Voice Divine<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-63","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twolisteners.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}