Hearing From God
We see in Judges 6 that Gideon seems to need a lot of confidence from the Lord in order for him to follow what the Lord is calling for him to do. He asks for two signs: that the angel of the Lord stay until Gideon would return with a gift, and by laying out a fleece. This gives us a common phrase used by parents all over the world when a child is indecisive, “throw out a fleece”. But is Gideon really a model for how we ought to seek answers and guidance from the Lord? If not, then how should we expect to hear from the Lord? What I plan to provide in this post is not an exhaustive understanding of how we communicate with God as this idea of communicating with God is core to our faith in him. This is simply my humble gatherings as a fellow Christian walking with the Lord.
Unity with God and His Character
A truly unique characteristic of the Christian faith is that we are not separated by some chasm from our God. Relationship is built into the character of God as seen through the Trinity. They each work together in a way that defies all sense of human understanding. They work as three distinct members, and yet they are united as one. A beautiful picture of this, not a complete picture but a simple beginning to understanding, is the three leaf clover. In God’s character is creation and so he creates us and all the beautiful world we experience. From the beginning, God proclaims his love for us and his desire to have a relationship with his creation. This can be seen all throughout the Old Testament from walking in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve to calls for repentance through Isaiah to a sinful Israelite nation.
But, because of original sin, there should have been a chasm between God and us. In his character is righteousness and no man could exist in his presence. Even the patriarchs of the faith were not without fault! And so, with the destruction of Israel proving the fruitless efforts of man to be worthy in the presence of God, God sent his own Son who is Jesus Christ that he might come and, by living a sinless life, remove the chasm between God and man that we might be united. Not that we might be equivalent to God but they we may be permanently in relationship with him, able to be in the Lord’s presence. Though sin would not allow us to have such unity, Christ came and died in order to take our death, that in turn we may put on the Son’s clothes and be adopted into the family of God. And by Christ’s resurrection he proved that sin and death have been defeated, that we may live in the reality of eternal life in the Kingdom of God even now.
This theology of unity with God is essential to our idea of communicating with God. We do not have to call over long-distance, but rather by Christ we have direct access to the throne room of our all-powerful, righteous God. We may speak to him through our intermediary that is Christ and God may speak to us.
Helpful Scripture: John 17, 2 Corinthians 3
With whom does God speak to?
There are some who believe that God only speaks to select people who are the only ones able to hear from God. Though some may have a gift for being sensitive to God’s moving and speaking, it does not disqualify anyone else from hearing from God. Do not live with the lie that the only people to hear from God are the pastor and elders or some spiritual elite! Each member of the body of Christ are connected to the same body by the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit is in you then you have the opportunity and the obligation to commune with the Father. The Holy Spirit was sent that it may convict the world of it’s sin and witness to the character of God (John 16:8, 15:26). Paul explains that the Holy Spirit was sent with the purpose of helping man understand and have revelation of God and spiritual truths that we may develop the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:10-16). What a deep promise given by the Spirit: those indwelled with the Spirit will be given the mind of Christ.
What does God talk to us about?
Simply stated, God will speak to us about whatever he needs to speak with us about. Sometimes he may be answering our prayers and giving us answers to our questions. This can be seen in our text from Judges 6 in the story of the call of Gideon. There are times he may be getting your attention and drawing you into his plan or calling. Think 1 Samuel 3 and the call of Samuel. Or maybe he is speaking to you in order to gift you something. Maybe it is a plan of action like he gave Elijah in 1 Kings 19 or to give peace as the psalmist proclaims in Psalm 85. There is no shortage of examples of God speaking in Scripture nor topics discussed.
Many of us, however, may feel as though we ever have those talks from God. No “life plan” has been sent to my email from heaven any time recently nor have I received a phone call speaking of hope from the angel Gabriel. Let us be reminded of how I just described the Holy Spirit in the last section and what the Spirit does. Though many of us claim to not have access to God, we quite literally do through the Spirit which resides in each of us. Paul tells us that the Spirit convicts us and gives us understanding of God’s character that we might receive the mind of Christ. How does that explain what God talks to us about?
For starters, the Spirit is going to convict us. Our conversation with God should often include repentance. In your daily prayer walk, are you praying for repentance? Not only for the things you know you did wrong, but praying that even the hidden things may be pointed out to you? Remember, Christ came as a substitute for those who repent and give up the chains to sin. But you have to give those sins up, which is a difficult process for many. It should feel like death, as you are quite literally dying to self in order to take on new being in Christ. Repentance and conviction make us uncomfortable and therefore something many don’t like to talk about. But it really should be a part of the starting point of any conversation with God. When a priest went before the Lord they spent time becoming the cleanest person in the town. Do we treat coming to God with that same respect?
The second part of the promise of the Spirit is that we might understand God more fully. Many times we are like Gideon asking for more and more signs. One thing we often do not realize is that if you know the character of God then there is less need for such signs. I am not claiming to know God’s will for every difficult situation that we will face, but I do know that God will not act contrary to his character which has been revealed throughout all of Scripture. It would be more beneficial, then, to spend less time anxiously waiting for a sign that is not promised to come and more time studying the character of God. Sometimes the sign we need is revealed in his character!
The last part is concerned with God’s creation taking on the mind of Christ. This also speaks against this idea of signs. Jesus acted in accordance with the character of God. Living by the Spirit encourages you to live likewise. When a believer is acting in accordance to the character of God, there is a good chance they will also be in the Lord’s will. When will sharing a prayer of peace be wrong? And when would a situation when showing love be contrary to God? When we understand more of the character of God, we are relieved of the pressures of trying to guess what God desires and ask for signs.
How does God speak to us?
God is able to speak to us in many ways and he displays many examples in Scripture. I will not go over every single way as I feel it is not necessary for our current discussion. However, I do not discount supernatural ways of hearing from God through angels, voices from heaven, dreams, or even through a donkey (Num. 22)! I will give you three common ways God speaks to us that, if you allow yourself to listen, God can speak to you even today. Those ways are through Scripture, through others, and through prayer. We need to be careful when we say that we “hear from God” as this statement carries a lot of weight and has the power to cause children in the faith to fall away. This is spoken of in 1 John, which I will reference in my sections on “Scripture” and “others”.
-Scripture
Scripture ought to be our baseline for how we judge whether or not God is speaking to us. It is through Scripture that we are granted the knowledge of God and the revelation of who He is. It is through Scripture that we are able to experience God throughout time and more clearly understand his character. It also is our litmus test for our thoughts of what we ought to do, think, or say. Our lives ought to be a living expression of the Word of God. Our lives need to be reflections of the truths contained. And when we come to forks in the road of life, it is to Scripture we can go for guidance in decision making.
-Others
Sometimes in life it is difficult for us to go to Scripture and allow that ancient text speak to us. Sometimes we have a difficult time putting our situations in the context of the Bible. And, if I am allowed to be honest, sometimes we just don’t want to read the Bible. Thankfully, God moves and speaks in many other ways. One such way is through other people. This one is dangerous, however, due to human sin. Not all people are speaking out of the character of God but rather speaking from human wisdom or for human gain. I am not trying to bash anyone, but these false prophets have existed for all of time and continue to this day. We see it in 1 John 4 where John asks the beloved to “not believe every spirit”. Many of these false prophets are genuine in their attempt to be good and helpful people, yet they make themselves some of the most despicable because they twist the character of God to fit a message.
But the false teachers do not disqualify human beings as a whole from being used to speak on behalf of God, Amen! Those who know God are still able to speak with truth and authority. And this does not always mean the preacher (though I do encourage you to always feel free to speak to your pastor). Those who are in the Spirit are able to be used by God and speak the truth to people’s lives and situations. This is seen many times throughout Scripture, and many times even in my own life. We need to be aware that God uses people to bless us, teach us, and guide us or we may miss where God is going in our lives.
-Prayer
Prayer is essential for the life of the believer because it is the main way we communicate with God. Prayer may be confusing, and it is not necessarily supposed to be easy. It certainly would be difficult if we are not sure God speaks to us or that he listens. Would it be easy for anyone to pick up the phone and spill your guts to dial tone (used to be a thing on landline phones...)? Of course that’d be difficult! But we have the promise that God is listening and that promise is seen fulfilled by his character acting in human history time and again both in Scripture and in the testimony of those living faithfully around us.
Prayer is often confusing in how we should conduct it, so I want to give you a small guide. Now this is not a perfect guide by any means. In fact, the best guide is Christ himself seen in the Gospels. But this small acronym has helped me. It is ARTP, which in my head I always say ART-P. It stands for:
Adoration- This is where you remind yourself about the character of God. Many times we rush into what we desire to receive from God or what we would like Him to do. But if you cannot remind yourself of His character, are you sure you know what God you are praying to?
Repentance- God listens to the repentant who are made righteous through Christ, and his face is against those who do evil (1 Pet. 3:12). When I tell people that, many get offended as “a God of love shouldn’t be against anyone”. I once got offended by this verse, too, not realizing that my offense to this showed my pride and also my lack in recognition of His character. When coming to the Lord in prayer, are you humble? Are you coming in prayer wanting God to complete you or for you to complete God by your own plans and desires?
Thanksgiving- We have so much to be thankful for, even in adversity or in times of need. Every prayer should include thankfulness to our Lord. Gratitude allows our prayer life to morph from a call for help and need to a reflection on a God that has always and will always provide.
Petition- Though last, it is still important. God tells us to bring our requests to him because it is part of His character to care for His creation! The problem we usually find is that petition, of the four parts of prayer, becomes dominant over the others. We must consciously not allow that to be a consistent pattern. But, we do need to pray for both ourselves and other people. Pray with expectation that the Lord will work in those situations. Ask for eyes to see the testimony growing from the request. It is amazing what God will do.
This acronym is a helpful guide, not a prescription. Your prayer life needs to be your own. This is your relationship with your creator. This guide is simply trying to lay parameters so that we may recognize that there is a right and wrong way to pray. Prayer ought to be humble, respectful, full of gratitude, full of God’s character, and not us telling God but rather laying at His feet our requests. When we get prayer right, we will be able to be more sensitive to his voice throughout the day.
Conclusion
Can we hear from God today? Yes. Though it may not be in a form that is as simple as a text message. We are called to be a people that seek out the Lord continually, as proclaimed by David in his song of thanks (1 Chron. 16:11).
Think about that passage with me. The Ark of the Covenant, which was the ancient representative of the presence of God, was brought to Jerusalem to be placed in a tent where God would be worshipped. David sings this beautiful song which in part describes seeking the Lord and being continually in God’s presence.
They had to go to a place. A tent. With an Ark. To be in the presence of God. To speak with God and to know him.
You catching where I am going?
Christ came to replace the tent with a new place of dwelling, a place where God’s presence could be experienced much more intimately: inside of you the believer. Amen!
My prayer for you is this: that you may take the promise of God’s presence and therefore the promise of him speaking to you and you may grow significantly in the depth of your faith. May you be inspired to know him more through prayer and the reading of the Word. May you be inspired to speak of him more, boldly proclaiming God’s character as revealed to you just as that everlasting character has been revealed through human history. May you be inspired to change your own life that you may be molded to look and act and talk more like Jesus Christ in your everyday. May you be inspired by the work that is going on inside of you and inside of your fellow believers that we each may be part of the building up of the Kingdom of God. Amen and amen.