Whisper

As I was praying for and thinking about so many of us that are waiting to hear God’s direction, I came across this today:

“I have faith that God will show you the answer. But you have to understand that sometimes it takes a while to be able to recognize what God wants you to do. That’s how it often is. God’s voice is usually nothing more than a whisper and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell.” ― Nicholas Sparks

To hear a whisper we must be still and get away from distraction.

My Children

Is there anything better than when your child needs you to hold them, whisper love and blessings to them and just sit still together? I more than imagine it’s the same for the Lord. Nothing brings Him more joy than when we come to Him, fall into His arms, give our burdens to Him and just sit still allowing His love to cover it all. If you could see the smile He gets when He thinks of you.

Check Yourself

Now maybe we’re hearing from God so the next thing to keep in mind is to always check ourselves. That list from Galatians that we mentioned a few days ago? Well, we need to make sure that’s who we are too. A Word from God will never be self-serving. We should examine our motives all the time. We should ask ourselves questions like: “Am I just hearing what I want to hear? Is this what’s best for everyone or just me? Is that really you God? Questions are always good. God loves them.

Epiphany

There are those times in our lives when God does speak loudly. We may have an epiphany or revelation about something that feels like we’ve been hit over the head. Something might dawn on us that’s like the clouds opening up and the Sun rushing in. When these happen it’s glorious and I’m so thankful but more often than not when the trumpets stop blaring we’re able to see how God had been whispering to prepare us for a long time, His timing is always perfect.

In Small Things

Another small aspect of Hearing from God is that He is concerned about little stuff in our lives. We can develop a familiarity and hear Him speak in the midst of our day to day activities. I could tell you many stories of God speaking about the tiniest of things. I wish there were more of them that I had actually listened to but that’s how we develop trust for the next time or the time after that

Small Voice

Often we don’t recognize God’s voice because we are listening for thunder instead of a whisper. There are times when God speaks loudly but most often He speaks in whispers. He wants us to slow down, make time to connect intimately and seek Him. We are to become good listeners. Too often our time with Him is spent talking and not listening. We have our agenda or our idea of what prayer is supposed to sound like (don’t get me started on that…) and we talk right over Him.

Generalization

Asking broad sweeping questions like, “Why is there evil in the world?” or “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is like trying to paint God with one color. Each of us is completely unique and God wants our relationship with Him to be the same. So rather than standing at a distance and throwing these questions out to the wind, we should draw close to Him and whisper, “What can I learn from this Dear Lord and how can we together survive and thrive?”.