Recently, a friend was holding my baby while I was on the other side of the room. When Abby heard my voice, she began to look for me. She recognized my voice and followed the sound of it looking for something familiar. Her actions, even as a baby, got me thinking. As Christians, we should be searching for God's voice in our lives just as Abby was searching for mine. In John 10:3-5 Jesus tells of a flock of sheep that know the shepherds voice. As a Christian, we need to recognize God's voice when he speaks to us. And he WILL speak to us.
While God can speak to you in an audible voice, it's not as likely to happen as God moving your spirit. Like I said in a previous blog, God told me to start writing again but he didn't speak to me through a burning bush or even through the radio. I felt a moving in my spirit to do this. You can question a moving of God all you want until you feel one. God moving me to do something feels as real as my baby girl touching my arm. The most difficult part of recognizing God's voice in a feeling is knowing when it is God's voice. John warns the church in I John 4 to watch out for misleading prophets. Rule number one to make sure what you are feeling is from God is to check it against his word. If what you are "feeling" might be from God doesn't align with his word, then it is not from God. This can be difficult to recognize as a young Christian but the deeper you get in your relationship with God and into the word of God, the easier it becomes.
The most successful way that you can recognize God speaking into your life is by communicating with him on a regular basis. The more time you spend with God in prayer and study the easier it is to recognize his voice. Abby knows my voice because I talk to her everyday. From the moment she developed ears in the womb I have been talking to her. A strangers voice will not turn her head like my voice will. She recognizes her mother. Jesus says that [the sheep] will never follow a strangers voice. "In fact," it says, "they will run away from him because they do not recognize a strangers voice." So that brings to question, as Christians, if we aren't following God's voice, then who's voice are we following?
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
A Movable Father
Recently, a spiritual mentor was telling about how God spoke to him when his son a baby. He said that when his son was a baby, he would often wake up in the night and cry because he was thirsty. One night, he entered the nursery and all he saw was a tiny arm sticking straight up holding a sippie cup. After he finished laughing, he was filling the cup and God began to speak to him. What made you move? You moved because you knew he was thirsty. There was no doubt there. When the screams came through the monitor, the father moved. When we cry out and truly thirst after God, he moves in our lives.
A big reason that this story has been on my mind lately is that it shows the importance of a strong hunger after God. It is a hunger I would really like renewed in my life. I want my hearts cries to move God. I want God to speak to me in life experiences and point out lessons that I should be learning. It's so easy to become lukewarm with our walk. Life is so busy that sometimes we put our time with God on the back burner or sometimes even in the fridge. It's time to really stir our hearts and focus on him and what he wants us to do. If you hunger after God, truly hunger and not just a show, he will move in your life and use you to move in others.
The other thing about this story that is that God moves when we cry out to him. God will absolutely not ignore his child's cry out of hunger. When my baby cries, I go to her and do whatever I can to make it better. Check out Matthew 5:25-27. God promises to take care of you. It says that his love for his children is so much greater than the love of birds which he still cares for. So why do we worry so much about pointless things in our lives? Why is it so hard to trust God in all things. My family has been through some storms and really had to learn the hard way to trust God but he always comes through. There was less money coming in than going out. At that time, we could have lost everything. But somehow, in ways that are still a mystery to me, we made it through that storm and God provided every need. When we cry, God listens.
A big reason that this story has been on my mind lately is that it shows the importance of a strong hunger after God. It is a hunger I would really like renewed in my life. I want my hearts cries to move God. I want God to speak to me in life experiences and point out lessons that I should be learning. It's so easy to become lukewarm with our walk. Life is so busy that sometimes we put our time with God on the back burner or sometimes even in the fridge. It's time to really stir our hearts and focus on him and what he wants us to do. If you hunger after God, truly hunger and not just a show, he will move in your life and use you to move in others.
The other thing about this story that is that God moves when we cry out to him. God will absolutely not ignore his child's cry out of hunger. When my baby cries, I go to her and do whatever I can to make it better. Check out Matthew 5:25-27. God promises to take care of you. It says that his love for his children is so much greater than the love of birds which he still cares for. So why do we worry so much about pointless things in our lives? Why is it so hard to trust God in all things. My family has been through some storms and really had to learn the hard way to trust God but he always comes through. There was less money coming in than going out. At that time, we could have lost everything. But somehow, in ways that are still a mystery to me, we made it through that storm and God provided every need. When we cry, God listens.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Bless my heart
So for the past couple weeks, I've really been feeling God moving me to start writing again. But there are just so many reasons not to. The biggest excuse I've been using is having a 10 week old baby and finding time to write is extremely difficult. She is actually sitting in my lap as I am typing right now. My second favorite excuse was that no one would want to read it. I am nobody special. I'm not even a very good writer. But there is one thing I've learned through the years and that is if God tells you to do something, you do it! After Pastor Doug's sermon this weekend about God using us even if we are "untrained" I knew that I couldn't use excuses anymore. So here it goes... The ramblings of my mind and how God has been speaking to me:
I've really been marveling at how God answers prayers. It seems like everytime I pray for something, I go through a storm that teaches me a lesson. Sometimes I have to go through it several times before I actually pay attention and learn the lesson.
Several months ago, on the brink of having my first baby, I began to pray for what all parents should be praying for: wisdom and patience. Within a few days of my first prayer, I was verbally attacked and put in a situation that I believe I would have reacted to in a very... non-christian way had I not recently been praying. Only a couple short weeks after that, another situation came up. As hard as it was, wisdom forced me to look at both encounters from the other person's point of view. When everyone was telling me how a reasonable person should have reacted by screaming my side or telling them they were being ridiculous, I felt horrible for them and how they must have been feeling. And a big part of me wanted to be really upset and act out like a normal person would have, but I knew there were already too many emotions in the pot and more would just make it worse. This even I was driving and I was thinking about these lessons that I learned. I am very sure that I will have many more lessons before I can call myself "wise" by any means but, I wonder if the reason some Christians don't pray for wisdom is because a lesson always follows. Even knowing now how difficult it was to go through those few weeks, I would do it all over again. Yes it was very hard and some relationships were broken and others were mended but I wouldn't have done it different. Lessons are sometimes hard but once you get through them, you feel a accomplished. You know you can make it through and that makes it worth it.
I've really been marveling at how God answers prayers. It seems like everytime I pray for something, I go through a storm that teaches me a lesson. Sometimes I have to go through it several times before I actually pay attention and learn the lesson.
Several months ago, on the brink of having my first baby, I began to pray for what all parents should be praying for: wisdom and patience. Within a few days of my first prayer, I was verbally attacked and put in a situation that I believe I would have reacted to in a very... non-christian way had I not recently been praying. Only a couple short weeks after that, another situation came up. As hard as it was, wisdom forced me to look at both encounters from the other person's point of view. When everyone was telling me how a reasonable person should have reacted by screaming my side or telling them they were being ridiculous, I felt horrible for them and how they must have been feeling. And a big part of me wanted to be really upset and act out like a normal person would have, but I knew there were already too many emotions in the pot and more would just make it worse. This even I was driving and I was thinking about these lessons that I learned. I am very sure that I will have many more lessons before I can call myself "wise" by any means but, I wonder if the reason some Christians don't pray for wisdom is because a lesson always follows. Even knowing now how difficult it was to go through those few weeks, I would do it all over again. Yes it was very hard and some relationships were broken and others were mended but I wouldn't have done it different. Lessons are sometimes hard but once you get through them, you feel a accomplished. You know you can make it through and that makes it worth it.
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