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.

Evangelism

I can access the usual resources again. Not sure what happened to them, but I'm glad that they are back.

Evangelism is a subject that I am perhaps a bit touchy about. I personally don't feel called to be an evangelist. Of course, Apostle Paul admonished us to do the work of an evangelist, and he doesn't seem to be talking to just those that have 'the gift' (some would say that that's just written to Timothy, but it seems kind of silly for it to be in the Bible if it were only intended for one man). Of course, there have been a lot of people who have 'evangelized' without wisdom. It can be particularly difficult to talk to someone about God who has been the victim of an over-zealous, under-compassionate evangelist in the past. The United Sates is generally regarded as a Christian nation, but our founding fathers taught religious tolerance, so all religions are welcome here. On the other hand, if you look around at those of us who call ourselves Christians, there isn't a lot of practicing of the faith (Jesus told us that we could identify His followers by their fruits, and Paul was nice enough to list those fruits for us). I posted last week on the subject of 'What Do You Believe?" Do you believe that you are going to Heaven because you have accepted Jesus as Lord of your life? Do you believe that there are people around you that are going to Hell because they haven't accepted Him? Do you think that they deserve that (more than you do, that is)? Jesus told us to compel them to come in, but that doesn't mean to push them. Pushing them only moves them farther away (in some cases, just telling them that they are going to Hell without Jesus will push them away). Every person is an individual, with their own wants and needs (okay, everyone needs Jesus--but not everyone knows that they need Jesus). On the other hand, there are a lot of people who know that something is missing in their lives, and are very much afraid that whatever it is could keep them out of Heaven, so if you don't tell them, they won't listen to anything else you have to say.

Last night we had a visiting pastor speak at our church. He is from a country that is predominantly Buddhist, and they have laws against converting a Buddhist to any other faith. He has found, though, that if you go in, and find out what people need (and everybody needs something), and help meet those needs (physical needs), then, not only are they more receptive when they finally ask, "Why are you doing this?" and he tells them it is because he is a Christian, even the ones that don't want to even consider converting are less likely to call the authorities. My point is that you can "shotgun" people with the gospel, but you're probably going to do as much harm as good (if not more), or you can spend some time and get to know the person. Find out what they need, where they're hurting. I'm sure that there were a lot of people during Katrina that needed to hear the gospel, but most of them were more concerned with where they were going to sleep that night, what they were going to eat (or when they were going to be able to eat next), what they were going to wear the next day, when would they be able to take a shower... Don't talk to me about where I'm going to go when I die right now, I'm too busy just trying to stay alive. Of course, there were probably also a few that were so convinced that they weren't going to survive that they wanted to hear all about Jesus (or Buddha or Mohammad or Krishna or whoever else might have some impact on where they would spend eternity). We have to be open to what people need right now; that means listening to God because He knows exactly what each of us needs.