I was away at a women’s retreat last week, and my brain had to be in a completely different gear, so for this week of Soulmind, we are going to hit the pause button on the subject of thinking about how we can learn to recognize God’s voice.
I am kind of a slow learner. I’ll read or hear something that I know is deep truth, and I will think, “Wow, this is awesome, this is something I want to really get!” But, a day later, I can’t articulate what the great thought was, and chances are that a week later the concept is completely gone from my head. Maybe you’re a bit the same.
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I’m a fairly concrete thinker, and I have struggled with the concept of having a relationship with someone I can’t touch or see. Interestingly enough, though, I have never seriously doubted the reality of God’s existence; blessed, really, with what Dallas Willard calls a “blind faith” that really does believe God is with me—I may be using abstract reasoning that says He simply must be here. And along the way, I did have experiences of a definite sense of God’s presence, through my own personal times of study, meditation, and prayer, through music, or in a worship service where there was a powerful impression that God was present, and seeing things happen that clearly had to be the work of God. You may have had those kinds of experiences and know what I am talking about. They are very real and meaningful ways that we do experience relationship with God.
But, Willard asks a direct question: Why, if God were personal, would He not also talk with us?
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Have you ever played the Bible Roulette game? You know, when you want to know what you should do about something, so you open up a Bible randomly and use the first verse your finger lands on as God’s answer to your prayer for guidance. Yeah, I’ve done that. Of couse, God could communicate with us like this, but when we try to use God superstitiously as a way to foretell the future, or to guarantee our own success and well being, we’ve missed the point. We misunderstand His nature and what He intends for us as His children and friends.
Here’s some questions to think about: Why DO you pray? What is your motive, and what are you expecting?
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