by Leslie J. Kearney

Have you ever stepped outside your house and a bush just burst into flames and a voice claiming to be God began talking to you?  No?  Truthfully I think that most people can honestly say they’ve never heard from God in a truly miraculous, spectacular way like that.

So how does God speak to us?  That’s what I’ve been pondering lately.  Something that I’ve been asking God to show me.  What does he want me to do?  Not just “big picture” as in  - “what do you want to be when you grow up?”  But in the little, quiet, everyday moments? 

If it is safe to assume that if God is everywhere, all the time, then the methods he uses to speak to us can be just as diverse and varied as he wants them to be.

Psalm 139

 A friend of mine said that it just blew her away one day to realize something.  When something big happens in the world we know God had a plan in mind. Then she began thinking “how small” that was.  God did not have just ONE plan, but probably MILLIONS of plans. 

For instance, what’s happening in Egypt right now.  God does not have ONE single plan in mind that he’s working through there.  No he has millions of plans, just as there are millions of people affected, and he’s using this one instance to affect all those people in their own unique GOD PLAN.

If you’ve ever taken the course Experiencing God then you learn that God speaks to us in a wonderful variety of ways.  The problem is that we miss them because we’re not looking for them, or worse, we ignore them because we might be asked to do something outside our comfort zone. 

When God speaks to us through his Word, through others, during a time of prayer, this is when we have what Blackaby calls “a crisis of belief.”  The moment when we decide if we’re really hearing the voice of God.  And if we are, then are we going to act on it?

It’s funny though, that I’ve always found that God speaks to me in a variety of quiet, subtle ways, more than he does in “big” out there ways.  In fact, I’ve only had one time in my life when I feel that God gave me direct words, through someone else, where that person was specifically told to tell them to me. 

I've always liked the stories about the prophet Elijah.  In one story  Elijah was running for his life and he ran into a cave and fell down exhausted. 

God came to him at that place and listened to his complaints (isn’t God wonderful? How he puts up with our petulance?), about how unfair it was that Elijah did everything God commanded and still his life was in jeopardy.  So to reveal himself to Elijah and let him know that God was bigger than any single king God told Elijah that he was going to pass in front of the cave he was hiding in and for Elijah to come stand at the entrance.  Here's what happened:

I KINGS 19:11-13

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.  

After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

God showed Elijah his POWER through the wind, earthquake and fire, but his SPIRIT speaking was in a gentle whisper.  In other words, God’s so powerful he doesn’t HAVE to shout!  You just have to listen!

Psalm 46:10

“Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”

God doesn’t NEED us – we’re the CREATED, not the CREATOR.  But he WANTS us to know who he is, and to have a lasting loving relationship with him!  And he can’t do that if we’re not in tune with his speaking to us.

Hebrews 1:1-3

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

What does this mean?  That through the Words of Christ God has spoken to each and every one of us.  Not necessarily a voice in our heads (but sometimes maybe), but through scripture.

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus when the rich man was suffering torment in hell and asked Abraham to send someone to his brother’s so that they might avoid going there he was told, “They have Moses and the prophets.”  In other words, God already HAD spoken to these people, they just chose not to listen.

So Is that practical to expect to hear God's voice on a regular basis?  Does God speak to us during our everyday experiences or just in the “big moments?”  I think God is speaking to us continually, if we’re attune to hear it.  And I’ve found that in my study of most missionaries, or mission organizations, they weren’t founded by someone that had a HUGE revelation like John or Paul.  No, the ideas came to them in the quiet moments of prayer and reflection.

For instance, the Ministry Open Doors.  Brother Andrew was reading his bible when he came to Revelation 3:2 - Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die.  He specifically felt that God was speaking to him through this verse, but didn’t know exactly what it meant.  So Brother Andrew began to look for an answer and one day he saw a brochure offering a "tour" (a propagand tour) of Communist Poland.  So he took the tour and during the trip he went to some churches.  He soon realized that the church under communism was completely cut off from the world of other believers.  That they were dying from persecution, and from isolation! 

So he founded Open Doors ministry and began smuggling Bibles into these countries, but more than that he began teaching in those churches, bringing greetings from the non-communist countries and telling them that they were not forgotten and that they were being prayed for. 

One ministry founded on one verse that came during a man’s quiet time.

One of the great stories that I heard at an Open Doors meeting I attended when I lived in Southern California was about a young Christian girl in China.  She worked at a mine and it was her job to track the time and ring a bell for start, lunch breaks and quitting time.  The miners were inside in the dark and only came out when the bell rang.

One day as she sat there counting the time she felt God speaking to her saying, “Ring the bell.”  She looked and it was mid-morning. Not time to take lunch or quit.  She argued, “God, if I ring the bell the men will come out, the supervisors will demand to know why I brought them out.  What will I say? I’ll be fired and I need this job.”  The whisper came again, “Ring the bell.” 

So against common sense she rang the bell and the men, not knowing the time, started filing out of the mine.  Just as the last man came out there was a cave-in that completely collapsed the mine.  Every miner would have been trapped!

In all the excitement the men crowded around her demanding how she knew this was going to happen and why did she ring the bell?  She told them that God had told her to do it and because of this a majority of them became Christians that day.

That’s an “extraordinary” story.  Now for an ordinary one.  Last week in our reading we read an article that was saying that a lot of missionaries bring their “western” ideas with them and then when people begin becoming Christians they immediately begin trying to change what the missionaries “think” are the biggest problems. For instance, multiple marriages, drinking, etc.  But that this wasn’t necessarily what the indigenous people thought were the biggest issues.

But when the missionaries stepped back, removed THEIR filter from things and put on GOD’S filter, allowing God to work, that things began to change as people read the scriptures and began praying. Not necessarily in the order that the missionary felt were the most important issues though.  That eventually, yes, they were convicted of these behaviors, but in God’s time, not man’s.

Sunday I was at a restaurant with a friend and she asked the waitress if she went to church and invited her here to CCV.  The waitress told us that she had just recently begun attending a local church, with her live-in boyfriend.  That she had not grown up attending church and was just now starting to go. 

I thought to myself, “I should say something about getting married being God’s will.”  Because so often we see Christians living together and that is not what God wants.  Then a still small thought came to my head reminding me of this reading.  And I thought, “yes” that’s a sin, but do I really want to be just another legalistic, judgmental Christian to this person that is so obviously excited about what she’s learning at this new church?”  And I clammed up, almost supernaturally. 

Was God speaking to me?  Yes he was.  He brought that article to mind to show me that HIS will is working all the time and it wasn’t for me to get in the way.  If this woman continues at this church, eventually the spirit will convict her and the boyfriend – since they are sincerely seeking God – and she WILL get married.  In the meantime I didn’t squash her newfound joy in discovering a relationship with God!

So how do we hear God?  By sincerely looking for Him in all the things we do. 

When we read scriptures we ask God to specifically speak to us through them.  When we talk with other Christians do we listen to their words seeking some counsel from God through that person to us?  When we are praying do we spend time being quiet too, or just chatter on never giving God a chance to get a word in?

I have a box here. I got it years ago at a prayer meeting I attended at Open Doors. I keep it in my living room in an obvious place.  Inside this box is a little card that says “GOD” – this box is my reminder to myself NOT to box God in.  To NOT say, “OK God you can ONLY talk to me through scripture, or my pastor.” But to say, OK God, I WILL NOT box you into this 3-dimensional world and say that you can only speak to me in a 3-dimensional way!  You’re allowed to reveal yourself to me in any way you like.”

“I WILL look for your spirit moving every day.  And I WILL seek to be there, ready and listening when you tell me to act, or not act, according to your will. “

That’s my challenge to you here.  Will you “let God out of the box” and allow him to speak to you anyplace, at any time?  I pray that you will.