How do you hear from God?
Discussion question for August 21, 2009.
We agree that Truth is a person – Jesus Christ – and that He guides us in all truth. How do we hear from God? What gives us confidence that the message is coming through, and ungarbled? When are we at risk of being misled, and what can we do to prevent that? What example can you give of a time when you clearly heard from God?
Here’s my summary of our discussion.
We must be aware that God is speaking to us at all times, through the Bible, circumstances, others, and the Holy Spirit. The greatest need is for us to want to hear Him, and to listen. It’s about relationship and not some formulaic or stilted process.
When God speaks to us through His word, there is a message that applies to all. This is the general meaning of what is written, by which we can come to know who God is. There is also a special, or unique, meaning that is a personal application to the believer. God may use specific words or a phrase and indue it with specific meaning for a situation in a person’s life. This is why the Bible is called the “living word” of God.
Circumstances can be a way God speaks since He is in control of all things. Gideon’s example of the fleece comes quickly to mind. It is important to recognize that God and Gideon agreed on the sign and the meaning before it occurred. The risk of doing it otherwise is that in our human nature we may wish to interpret a meaning based on the answer we already want or believe. God was very specific in the use of Urim and Thummim in the early days of Israel so that it would be an expression of His will and not subject to the will of the one interpreting.
We are in a love relationship with God and we activate the things we know to be true (in our head) with experience (in our being), as expressed by Dr. Blackaby in Experiencing God. This experiential knowledge comes as an epiphany, an “ah ha” moment, or a sudden awareness of information that is too great for me to have thought up on my own.
The goal of hearing from God is to have the mind of Christ. This is also the process of hearing from Him. So, we yield to His thinking and align our thoughts with Him. If our thoughts and desires diverge from His, then we are growing apart instead of together.
A practical truth of this discussion: to hear from God we must ask, and then listen.