Back to Basics
I don’t know about you all, but when I am going through difficult situations I try to listen to God and figure out what I’m supposed to do. Just recently, I have been trying to decide what to do and where to go with my ministry, what to do with several relationships in my life, etc. (trust me there is more going on in my life, but that is the two biggies). Anyway, I have been listening for God’s voice, for that matter I’ve been listening for God’s voice for a long time now, and I haven’t heard anything. Come to think of it, God has never audibly spoken to me.
This angers me! I mean, how can some people tell me or even say that God spoke to them, and yet God doesn’t speak to me (unless maybe they are just claiming that so they can do whatever they want to do)! Furthermore, it is impossible to read the Bible and not see where God spoke to all those people at various times. So here’s the thing, if God is the one who was, and is, and is to come, and is the same yesterday, today, etc., then God must still be speaking! So why am I not hearing Him?
I definitely hear what everyone around me is saying – I hear you all when you write back, I hear my parents and friends, and I hear my advisors and mentors. But this is the scary part, our parents, our friends and families, etc. many times are wrong. I’m not saying that they don’t have good intentions, but when we make decisions based on solely what others have told us or seems most advisable to us, we are prone to not receiving God’s best for us. Proverbs 14:12 takes this a step further and says, “There is a way which seems right to man (woman), but its end is the way of death.” In other words, our or our friend’s insight on what to do in certain situations isn’t good enough!!
Crazy as it may be, Jesus Himself, didn’t base His decisions on His own advice or those of His buddies. In John 5:30, Jesus is speaking and says, “I can do nothing on my own. Only as I hear do I judge, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” So here is Jesus, the one we are to model our life after and He even states that He won’t act on anything till He hears the voice of God.
I want to be like that! But how hard is it to not take others advice? Especially if we love them! However, I want to get to the point where no one or nothing (not even preachers) besides God will help me make my decisions because I know anyone besides God may steer me wrong. With that being said, I completely believe that God can speak to us through our families and friends, sermons, etc. but what do we (I) do when our loved one’s advice can lead us (me) wrong, especially if they are trying to base their advice off of experience or their interpretation of the Scriptures. The truth of the matter is that we can experience and especially interpret things wrongly! Although our experience is our experience, or our lived lives, the enemy will often times have us interpret our experience wrongly! So therefore when people are giving us advice based off of their experience we should take warning.
For obvious reasons the best and easiest way for God to speak to us would come from humans, however what are we to do if people will lead us wrong? The answer is that we have to take everything back to Scripture. I truly believe that God will never lead people contrary to what He has set forth in the Bible. Richard Blackaby, co-author of Hearing God’s Voice, says it this way, “whoever relies solely on a perceived word from God, while neglecting to validate it in the Scriptures, is doomed to inevitable error.”
I haven’t heard God audibly speak yet, and who knows if I ever will, but what I can do now is take all advice I have for myself, and all the advice everyone else is giving me, back to Scripture. The truth for us all is that God created us for fellowship with Him, for John 17:3 tells us that God wants us to know Him!!! How encouraging that is for me. I have dreamed of and need someone in my life that loves me to the point of wanting me to pursue them with all I have. God may not be speaking now, but I know God will. Maybe He is just waiting on me to know the basics (the basics for me is Scripture – the stuff we all have access to) before He starts talking to me on a deeper, personal level. Whatever the reason is, I’m still gonna pursue Him, and I’m still going to believe in the God that speaks.