A note to Joe - Part 1

Joe, sorry it took so long for me to reply, but the past few days have been very hectic.

You're not alone brother when you were being honest enough to admit you don't have all the answers about hearing God's voice. We all know so little about God, it's just that some of us have fooled ourselves into thinking we know more than others. I believe His plan is to reveal bits and pieces of Himself in order to entice us into pursuing Him with greater and greater desire. He teases us like a stripper that has no intention of taking it all off, yet we become mesmerized by the process and seductiveness of it all. Maybe that's not a very Godly analogy, but I like to use references that I can relate to when thinking, and talking about God, even if it's something weird like that. I'm just not into being pretentious. I love the idea of pursuing God, but I also know just how much He has pursued me as well.

When I talk about how God communicates with me, (for that's all I know with any degree of certainty) I use two points of reference in the Bible. One from the Old, and one from the New Testament, although I never set out a plan to come up with something from both. I'll start with the Old Testament reference first, although you may relate better to the second one.

You may remember Elijah from the Sunday School stories about the big show down on the mountain he had with Baal's prophets- where God set fire to the wet wood he placed on the altar. Elijah was a great man of God, a great prophet (beginning in 1Kings 17 chapter) God used him in many ways. The truth is, Elijah was also a very cocky dude. He liked to be the aggressor in many situations. There's lots of folks today just like Elijah that you and I run across all the time, even a few on television. They think because they have God on their side, (as Bob Dylan wrote) that they can say or do anything, because they are "godly" people - the Chosen Few. If you're not sure just how godly they are you merely have to ask and they are quick to give your list of accomplishments. Well, just last year alone they led 1,243 lost souls to the altar they claim. Forgetting the Holy Spirit may have had a little hand in the process.  Thus allowing more than just a few of them/us (sometimes) to develop a holier-than-thou- attitude.

Anyway, Elijah witnessed God do so many undeniable and miraculous things in his life that he became a walking testimony to His greatness. He was right there with God all the way - His starting quarterback.  Through all of this he was able to convince a whole nation to turn away from worshiping other gods and idols, and worship the one true God. Okay, it's true - in the process a whole lot of them got killed as well, but the ones that remained got the message pretty quick. Elijah's God was not just the mightiest of all gods, but in fact He was the only God and if they had as so much as looked like they wanted to challenge that notion, Elijah was there to call them out into the dusty streets at high noon. He was a gunslinger well before Smith and Wesson ever came around.

Now you would think that through all of this Elijah, with his Muhammad Ali personality would see himself as being ten foot tall and bullet proof, and he did for the most part.  That is until one woman (Jezebel) merely threatened to kill him. That's it, she simply sent word to Elijah that she would kill him if he was still hanging around the next morning. So with all of his boldness and the power of the Almighty on his side what did he do? He did what every red-blooded chicken would do, he ran! He ran, and he ran. Like the song says, a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction. He ran.

Finally tired of running he took refuge in a cave on the side of a mountain where he spent the night. The Bible says and behold, the word of the Lord came to him and He said to him; What are you doing here Elijah? So Elijah let God in on the bad news about his situation (as if) - then God tells him to go to the mouth of the cave and stand before Him on the mountain. Elijah did as he was told and a great and mighty wind blew through the hillside, but God wasn't in the wind. Then a terrible earthquake shook the entire mountain, but God wasn't in the earthquake. After that a raging fire swept over the mountain but God wasn't in the fire either. Then the Bible says, a still small voice came over this place and again God asked; What are you doing here Elijah? And then Elijah got it!  Through the direction he received from this still, small voice Elijah's courage was restored and he went right back to doing God's bidding.

Well, my friend that's a very long way around the block to simply say this; Sometimes we try and distinguish God's voice from among many. We think we hear Him in this speaker, or that preacher, in this song, or in that Televangelist. And all the while we're trying to tune into the voice of the Lord it's through all the noise, confusion and chaos of our daily lives. We'll be driving to work, the radio blaring, zig- zagging in and out of traffic the whole way, yet we call this "our alone time with God." The truth is, for many of us this is the only opportunity we give God to speak to us. Sometimes it works, and sometimes He just can't get through to us, so we end up like Elijah - on the mountaintop one day and hiding in a cave the next. We go from allowing God to do great things through us, to running for our lives the next. But, but when we stop all of the craziness - when we stop all the running around, and we begin to shut out all the noise from our everyday lives, when we have a realistic perspective as to who we are, and who God is, then we can finally calm down, we can begin to feel a peace come over us, and I find in those times God's voice can come to us in the smallest and stillest of ways yet I can better understand what He is saying than at any other times in my life.

The biggest problem we often see today with believers communicating with God, is that we like to do all the talking. We love to quote the scriptures that empowers us to take everything to God, all our little boo-boos, our problems, our hurt feelings, our need for healing, our need for a new spouse, our greedy little desires for more money, a new car, a boat, a job, and on, and on, and on (and yes, that is scriptural). The truth is, we get so busy asking, asking, asking, that we never take a station-break, to see what God says in return. We're so convinced that if we ask ,and it doesn't materialize in the next day or two, then God's answer must be NO. If it does materialize, then praise be to God, for He is good. We'll rub the belly of our genie bottle again and ask for something even bigger and better next time. That's how it works, isn't it? We have become a society or church that praises God all the time for what He does. Be honest and ask yourself, WHY did I praise God last? I bet it was because He did something for you, didn't He? You can find it all the time on television, after ball games, after a plane crash where no one is killed, after a tornado screams through a town and miraculously no one dies in the twenty seven mobile homes that got torn apart. WE PRAISE GOD ALL THE TIME FOR WHAT HE DOES! As well we should.  Yet the other side of that truth is we rarely ever praise God for who He is!

We don't praise Him when things are going bad, no we're too busy telling Him what we need, and more importantly how we want Him to fix it. You never hear a guy on his way home from work after receiving his pink slip praising God for He is good. Or when they get the dreaded phone call from the doctor's office saying they need to come in to talk to the physician about their test results. NO, we are a good times praising God kinda people- trust me. I'm not suggesting we become some sort of poly-annie, smiling all the time, praise be to God with every breath we take type of believers. But I do know this – He deserves our praises all the time for who He is, and who He is is so much greater than any amount of praise we can offer. If you want to know if this is right thinking or not, turn to John's writing in Revelation and see what he said folks were doing in heaven when he got a view of things above. If we can't do it here on earth for twenty minutes a day, what in the world would convince God we could do it throughout all of eternity? If life here is supposed to be practice time for the next life you would think we would do a little more practicing wouldn't you. 

But, we don't take this approach, do we? For as long as everything is coming up roses we can sing praises with the best of angels, but let things go a bit sour in our lives and see what we do. We fall on our knees begging and pleading with God. We attempt to bargain with God, making deals we never intend to keep - but if it'll get us the results we want, then who cares. God will forgive us for not following through, come on that's what He does. He's a forgiving God, right.

Yet, when we don't get that miracle we've had everybody and their brother helping us pray for. When were left with just three months to live. When that deal on that new house with the Olympic size swimming pool falls through, or our business goes bankrupt because of the bad economy that no good President caused, we clam up and get mad at God for allowing these terrible things. We begin to challenge the mere idea of God's existence. How could a loving God allow these things to happen to us, of all people! I thought God and I we're close, now look what He's allowed to happen to poor pitiful me!

Oh yeah, we have a personal relationship with the Lord alright! It's about as healthy, honest, and truly intimate of a relationship as some of us have with our spouses, and our immediate families. For most of us, we don't know what it is to be honest with our-self more less with God or someone else. We're just like Elijah, we're mighty and powerful because God is on our side. We need to remember that God is mighty and powerful with or without us! 

Yet, here we go just riding along on our even-kneel pace hoping for the good times to come around, and praying we don't have to deal with any more bad stuff for awhile. I'm absolutely convinced beyond any doubt in my mind - that our lives would be turned upside down if we stop praying for help all the time and simply begin praising Him continuously for who He is! The problem becomes – faith or a lack there of. You see, we're a lot like Elijah in the cave,we think if we don't explain to God what's going on, He'll never understand, He'll never know what we need. Thus we have developed this one-sided conversation with God in our prayer lives, and so we go on - talk, talk, talking to God – never listening! (Kinda like my writing, huh!)

Whew, did I get off track there! So much so, I'm going to have to wait til later to give you the New Testament version. You probably wish you had never asked by now I suspect.

My point in all that was this. God speaks all the time in a still, small voice, yet because of all our busyness, all the noise, all our yakking, all our wrong perspectives of who we are, and who God truly is, we simply can't here Him. If you want to experience God talking directly to you, you gotta listen for Him and when you're not listening you need to be praising- that's my belief.  His word says, He knows our needs way before the words ever reach our lips.  We just gotta trust in that!   Next, you've got to find a "getaway place" (the Bible calls it your secret place, or prayer closet) then you simply have to have a true yearning in your heart to hear from Him.  Just keep your mouth shut and listen. If you don't hear anything today, simply button it up tomorrow and give it another shot. I assure you sooner or later, when God knows you are ready to hear Him, when He knows your heart is receptive, He'll reveal himself to you, and the voice He'll speak to you in, will be just as unique as the voice He speaks to me in.

I'll get to the New Testament version as soon as I can.   You can wake up now.   (LOL)  Have a good day my friend.  Tell Crystal and Jay I said hey!  doug