The other day I discovered a book about how God does not speak with us.  The author (a pastor) firmly believes that Christians cannot hear from God directly.  I didn’t read it.  The title itself, and advance knowledge of the general thesis was nauseating enough for me.  Publishing a book like that is kind of like popping a high-five with the devil, celebrating keeping people spiritually deaf.  It’s like a relationship where you get to read The Letter of God all you want, but by no means are you allowed to ever have the audacity to pickup the phone and call Him.  Jesus said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4  It’s important to point out what Jesus did not say.  He did not say “…but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.”  He used the word proceedeth which is ongoing.  By no means am I saying that in any way, shape, or form something should be added to the holy canon of scripture.  But the heavenly manna that we all need is the ongoing, continued, every-day word of God proceeding from His mouth!

The initial barrier to hearing God

Now there are many ways we can hear God.  A while back I shared one method for hearing Gods voice that really helped me.  I wrote about it in the piece titled The scientifically proven way to hear God’s voice.  It was a rough two years of doing ministry, but not hearing God, and getting very irritated by people who claimed they did hear God.

When I became a senior pastor for the first time, I had a wonderful idea.

“Why not call the pastor of the largest church in our city of 1.5 million, and see if he would be willing to sit down with me and share some of his wisdom from all the years he has been pastoring?”

It certainly seemed like a wise thing to do.

But in the next scene unfolding in my brain, this young, courageous activist (the initial idea) was being tackled and carried away by riot police in the form of countering thoughts which swiftly started to dominate in this psychological scrimmage.

“He is pastoring a mega church.  I’m not sure he would have time to spend with me.” I thought.

“Who am I?  I don’t even really have a relationship with him.  I’ve met him, but I doubt he could find time to spend with me…”

And on and on and on that train of thought went, as the activist was lifted off the ground and carried away….

However, in a sudden turn of events, the activist being carried away by Russian riot police suddenly slipped out of his coat, ducking their frantic attempts to apprehend him once again.

And here, our scrappy champion made a final comeback.

“I’ll just call him.” I thought.  “What do I have to lose? Even if he isn’t up for it, at least I tried.”

One day after I called this pastor I was sitting in a coffee shop asking him a million questions.

I was shocked when he so easily agreed to meet, and help in any way he could.

I’m a pastor, so that was my story, but what about you?

Maybe you’re starting a small business, and it’s all about simply mustering up the courage to talk to some extremely successful businessman you could potentially contact through a mutual friend.

But the agents of doubt are upon you, shoving you away from believing that person would be interested in spending some time to help you.

In Matthew 7:9 Jesus said:

…which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?    Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  ¹¹  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

 

So part of the problem is that we actually are in the middle of a war where the enemy is trying to destroy our confidence in the goodness of God.

If we can have all kinds of fears, insecurities, and doubts in just reaching out to another human being, who happens to be more experienced and successful than us, then all the more, that kind of thing can hold us back from

drawing near to the throne of grace with confidence, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

Especially when we realize that

…no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (the previous verse 13)

But don’t forget what it says in Colossians 1:22

He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

We must embrace confidence in our sonship, and in the fact that because of Jesus, the Father sees us as blameless.

We also must embrace the reality that it is NATURAL for us to hear God, and recognize His voice.

I John 10:27 Jesus said

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

Even the lost sheep who caused Him to leave the 99 hears his voice and recognizes it!

God has a lot to say!

In Psalm 139:17-18 David says:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!   If I would count them, they are more than the sand.”

It’s one thing to meet someone at church and say hi, or chat with a colleague at work for three minutes.

But that’s not the kind of quality time where you can actually hear someone’s heart.

To really hear someone, it takes sitting down, giving each other your full focus, turning off the phones, and probably a few cups of coffee.

In the same way, in order for us to actually hear from God, we must position ourselves on the watchtower, or as Bill Johnson likes to call it we have to setup the “ambush” like a hunter (not that we are hunting for God, but like a hunter, we are willing to find the right position and patiently wait).

Habakkuk 2:1-2 gives us a great illustration of this.

I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.  And the Lord answered me:  “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.””

It’s interesting that in order to hear he looked.

Often the way God speaks to us is not through hearing but seeing.

Much of what the Lord reveals to me and speaks to me often comes through visions in my mind.

But we must get up onto the watchpost in order to see what it is that the Lord wants to reveal to us or speak to us.

So it’s essential that we find that watchpost in our lives.

Is it a walk in the woods?  A prayer closet?

It usually has to be a secluded place like we see when Jesus was withdrawing away from people, to be with the Father.

Mushrooming and hearing God

Once we spent close to a week in a remote village in Ukraine with a large evangelistic team doing outreaches in several villages in the area.

Every day we would go out with our host and gather wild mushrooms.

Our diet was mostly fried potatoes with wild mushrooms we would gather.

I was always impressed with how an experienced mushroom hunter could see mushrooms that seemed to not exist a few seconds earlier when I looked in the same place.

Hearing God is kind of like mushroom hunting.

• One person runs through the forest on his morning jog, and comes to a firm verdict that there are in fact no mushrooms in that forrest. (Unlike Habakkuk, he never climbed the watchtower)
• Another, who came with an eye to spot mushrooms, walks out of the forrest with two buckets full of wild fungal gems.
• Others might say “Gathering mushrooms is too dangerous! Do you know how many people die every year from eating the wrong mushroom?”  (You might not hear God, but some demon! Or you might just hear something of the flesh!)
• Others just gather every mushroom they find.  All mushrooms are good!  It’s all good! I received it, so it must be from God!  (The need for discernment.  Not everything that we pickup on in the spiritual realm is from God.)

Discernment

It’s tru that picking the wrong mushroom is dangerous.

And we might even say “Gathering mushrooms is just a whimsical hobby that’s not even really necessary in the Christian life, so why even allow the risk it involves?  Is it worth it?  Why not just stick with the food we can trust?”

The problem is that Jesus said the words that proceed from His mouth are our bread, not black truffles.

We can’t live without Him speaking to us.

Even if we’re just reading our bibles, it doesn’t do much good unless we read until He speaks.

In Psalms 119:66 David cried out to God

Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.”

If you’re not reading your bible, and Gods word does not occupy the place of supreme authority in your life, then don’t even bother asking God for discernment.

David doesn’t just cry out for good judgement and knowledge, but he connects that with “FOR I BELIEVE IN YOUR COMMANDMENTS!”

As we cry out to God for the gift of discerning spirits and in general for discernment, we better be washing ourselves in the Word every day, because the foundation of all discernment is His written word.

So, just as we can develop an eye for spotting Chanterelles in the woods, in the same way we can climb the watchtower and hone our skills in recognizing what the Lord is revealing.

And this business of learning to hear Gods voice is not some novel, prophetic, mystic practice reserved for abstruse Charismatics.

It’s something absolutely vital for our spiritual survival, in order to thrive in our relationship with our Creator.

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.   Matthew 4:4