My problem when dealing with the existence of God isn’t about logic or reason, it’s about experience. All my life I have been taught that you can talk to God through prayer like you can talk to a person, and that God will answer. But I haven’t seen it happen in my life. I’ve never felt like there was someone “on the other line,” and I’ve never felt answers to my prayers that were more than near-imperceptible subtleties, or “confirmations” of what I wanted to do anyway.
I was thinking, though… one of my issues is that I’m expecting God to reply to me in the same way that I speak to him, i.e. with words or something approximate. I wonder is, assuming the existence of God, my expectation isn’t a tad unrealistic.
I mean, we’re talking about God here, right? We’re talking about something that’s too big to wrap our minds around, and I’m expecting it to use human language? I’m a law student with some linguistics background; I should know as well as anyone that human language is not really a very perfect method of communication. Why would God resort to an imperfect and highly problematic method of communication when he ahs all existence to work with? He’s not limited the way we are, so why should he restrict himself to the limits we’re subject to?
A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say, and symbol can speak so much louder than words. They may be problematic in their own way, and harder to understand, but they can carry so much more meaning, and deeper, multileveled meaning, than words can.
Maybe that’s the problem with scripture- you have someone trying to hammer concepts into words that aren’t really made to be expressed in words. Anyway, my point is that God isn;t a person, so why should I expect God to communicate with me the way a person does?
Sailing to Byzantium 
You might not have decided on or discovered what or how you believe yet, but you sure did encourage me in my faith journey with this post.
StB Have you ever considered that God is not much of a God unless he communicates to us in a way that we will understand? He is not loving if he communicates in hidden speak/riddles/ethereal content, for it is unkind to keep the ones you love in the dark about yourself. Yet God has spoken to us in a way that we can understand. He has given us his word, the Bible so that we might understand who He is, and what he is in the business of doing with mankind. In the letter to the Hebrews, it is written that God has spoken to us in the prophets and in many ways, but in the last days God has spoken to us through his son, Jesus Christ. Hebrews goes on to say that the son is the radiance of God’s glory, in essence saying that when you see Jesus, you see God, and him speaking. (all his goodness, all his purposes, all his words to us are in Christ Jesus.) So you see, there is no reason to sit back and try to listen for God’s actual voice, but rather read his word. It is there that you will “hear” from God.
There is much more to talk about, but I must go.
I’ve been planning to write a post about “how do we know if our prayers have been answered”. I’ll get it out in the next day or two based on your post.
Here’s a link: http://tinyurl.com/288tkv
I wrote a post on this a while back that might interest you.
Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Revelation.
If you consider that Jesus was both human and divine, He knows us much better than we might think. What if Jesus is talking to you right now ? Why would any of us not hear Him ?Although the intellect is a wonderful gift of God we’re not just intellect Instead most experience life on a number of levels including intellect, feelings, will and so on.However, the soul knows much about Our Lord yet the mind,sinful attachments & worldly pleasures, status, consumerism and so on often cause many souls to wander away from God. He is talking yet we are listening to our version of God designed by the world. ‘You are in the world but you do not belong to the world’. If we are preventing Him from authentically representing Himself to us, He can constantly be interacting yet we will not hear for ears are closed. When you pray God listens but do you really want to know what He saying? Are you willing to hear His Call to love Him above all things and others as yourself. He sees our desire to join Him and loves us patiently. “My sheep know Me and I know them” Think about Our Lord first and then silence your thoughts.
God Bless and Keep you in His Loving Arms