The Voice of God

Lily Tomlin once posed the question, "Why is that when you talk to God, that's called prayer, but when God talks to you, that's called crazy?" It's an interesting question. Of course, she was being humorous when she said it, but it points out a basic flaw in the conventional wisdom of our society. The vast majority of Americans (and probably any other country, as well) believe in some form of God or gods. Most religions advocate prayer, but most people don't believe that God talks back (some say that they do, but they would be pretty surprised if God spoke to them, and might even consider psychiatric treatment). A lot of this stems from the fact that, in recent history, at least, the vast majority of people who claim that God has spoken to them have gone on to claim that God them something ludicrous, or proved themselves to be lunatics in some other fashion. Personally, I think it's not so much that God doesn't talk, as it is that we, generally, don't listen. Even the people that claim to have heard from God, aren't listening to God. We have a tendency to hear only what we want to hear, and, most of us don't expect to hear what we want to hear from God, so we just don't listen. We'll go to church and sing the hymns that the choir director has picked out, and sit quietly while the preacher preaches (and not really listen to him, either), and we expect that at the end of life, God will critique us, but ignore the fact that we barely acknowledged Him in this life. We all want to hear God say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." I mentioned yesterday that, in order to hear those words, one must first be a good and faithful servant. How can you do God's will if you aren't listening?

Some of you are probably wondering if I've ever heard from God. I believe I have. To be honest, I don't know how to describe it. I didn't hear a voice; I just suddenly knew something that I didn't know before. Let me give you an example: Several years ago, I moved to the area where I live now. There was a woman at the church that I had not known prior to moving here that started flirting with me. She was a widow, and a good bit older than I was (she mentioned once that she had four sons, and then she told me their ages--three of the four were older than I was), and I thought it was funny, so I flirted back (yes, yes, I know: bad idea). After awhile, though, it stopped being funny, and I prayed about it. Part of me really thought that God wanted me to marry this woman. I wanted to do what God wanted me to do, even if it meant marrying a woman old enough to be my mother, so I prayed hard. I will admit, that was one of the most focused prayers I have ever prayed. In the midst of the prayer, I didn't hear a voice, I just suddenly knew that the only way that she would marry a man my age was if she was backslid. It struck me as odd that it was phrased that way--a simple 'no' would have sufficed (although, in retrospect, I'm not sure I would have believed that it came from God if the answer had been that simple). In any case, I stopped flirting with her after that. A couple of years later, she left the church and married a man about my age (actually, a couple of years younger than me, so the same age I was when I got my answer from God. Of course, I never told anyone about that (until now), so you just have to take my word that it happened. Of course, I give this as an example, and I will admit that, there have been other occasions, when I suddenly just 'knew' something, and I really didn't know anything at all. The Bible says to try the spirits to see if they be of God. In other words, be familiar with what the Bible says, so that you can judge for consistency when a thought comes to mind that may be from God, or when someone tries to give you advice about whatever situation you are in. Does it match up? Does it seem like something God would want you to do? Notice I didn't ask if it makes sense: If David had asked that question, he never would have gone up against Goliath; Jehoshaphat would have never sent a choir into battle; Abram would have never left Haran.