There are many voices around us. There are “expert voices” that tell us that our lives have only material reality. “Eat, drink and be merry,” they say.

There are others who urge us to pursue health, but they only tell us about physical health. They have nothing to say about our spiritual health, and we end up having, as Os Guinness has put it, “firm bodies and fat minds.”

Yet others tell us to use up our lives earning money which we can spend on ourselves. Many others urge us to “just do it” or to obey your thirst.”

Our social environment is full of confusing noise, and if we do not have a wise inner voice, we will soon succumb to the seductive voices that threaten our inner health, causing our lives to be fragmented.

What can you do about it?

You will need to receive the divine voice that is neither yours nor society’s. The voice of your own self is tainted with self-deception and fallen nature. The voice of society is confusing, and is often but an echo of the many voices of deceiving and deceived selves.

We all need to hear a voice that transcends us and our society. This voice will expose the regular folly of self and society. It will help us to rise above personal gratification and social convention. Without this voice, those who want to deny personal gratification will end up in the prison of living socially conventional lives. And those who want to resist social convention will become prisoners of personal gratification, victims of their own addictions.

A worse situation is when both fallen self and confused society work in collusion. For example, those who rebel against social norms in the name of individual freedom are often following their own herd; they mindlessly mimic others in the “in” crowd. Creative individuality is often another name for following the uniform fashion of peers. At the same time, social convention, especially in our day and age, may simply be a socially sanctioned way of operating as a crowd of individualists, each pursuing his own desires. This is what really happens in the modern marketplace.

If you are running the race that really matters, you will need your own Guide – an inner divine voice to guide you. This is a transcendent voice that rises above self and society. It makes the difference between folly and wisdom, between completing the journey with dignity and running it with folly, entertaining self or pleasing others.

Consider this:
Whose voice are you following today? How will you develop a discernment for God’s voice?

Excerpted and adapted from The Race by Robert Solomon. © 2008 by Robert Solomon. Used by permission of Armour Publishing. All rights reserved.