WHENGODSPEAKS

When God speaks do you listen and if you listen, do you recognize his voice?

What does God's voice sound like? Some refer to it as a still, small voice while others say it sounds exactly like their own voice, their own thoughts. Some people describe it as a knowing, an intuition, an urge, or a feeling--usually residing somewhere within the midsection and still others say God's voice is our conscience. But one thing is certain, with the exception of the Old Testament, Jesus, and the Apostles, very few people, if any actually experience God's voice as an auditory stimulus outside these jars of clay that we call the human body.

Perhaps God's speaking is different for everyone. As for myself, I generally hear it as my own thoughts, yet I have upon occasion heard it as a feeling, a knowing, and sometimes I have found myself acting on an impulse and only later realizing it was God. But however we hear it, the real question is, do we listen? I would like to say that I do, but I know that I don't always. Sometimes my own feelings interfere, bringing to rise such things as embarrassment or doubt, and sometimes I'm too insecure to act because I'm not sure it is God's voice that I'm hearing. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but sometimes the devil can sound an awful lot like God.

It would be far easier if God spoke in the thundering voice that we all recognize from the movies. It would certainly be easier to know it was really him speaking and thus easier to listen to. Learning God's voice has been extremely difficult for me. When I thought I knew it was God, knew his voice, I found out it wasn't. If these hit anbd misses have ever occurred with you, then you know how truly disheartening and discouraging they can be. Nine times out of ten, I would be right on target. God woulds speak and it would come to pass...and then there was that number ten. God would speak--or so I thought, then low and behold, it wouldn't happen. This not only gave me great doubt, but it caused great concern and great reservation, especially when it dealt with other people. After all, how can you trust something you can't always depend upon? Of course I knew God wasn't like that. He wouldn't purposely confuse and he doesn't mislead or lie. Thus, I knew the problem was with me. Somewhere along the way I was picking up a wrong signal. I would also like to tell you that I solved that problem, but I can't. I can however leave it with God and allow him to right whatever is wrong with my receiver.

Does this mean that in the meantime I should stop listening to God because I'm not sure? I don't think so. That would be giving Satan exactly what he wants and I am not in the habit of giving the devil anything I think he wants...at least not on purpose.

This brings us to the next question. When God speaks, do you listen? There are three main excuses for not listening. We don't listen because we're not sure and we don't listen because we simply don't like or don't want to do whatever it is that God is telling us. But I think that most of the time we don't listen because of embarrassment and a good majority of the time it's because of what other people would think of us, of our actions. A prime example of this occurred one day at my work. My co-workers happened to notice an old man reclining in the bushes beside our parking lot. My Boss made it a point to warn us, instructing us to be careful, to keep the door locked etc. I didn't give it a whole lot of thought and I returned to work. I thought I had forgotten all about it when out of the blue it came into my head to give the man some money. My first instinct was to tell myself I was nuts. Thre issue was not the amount of money because I didn't have much; maybe a few ones and some change which might have amounted to five dollars. My mind had immediately rebuked the thought with the reasoning that the man was probably a drunk or crazier than I was. But more important to me seemed to be what everyone else would say if they saw me giving this derelict money. Needless to say I didn't run right out there. However, the feeling to do this thing persisted mightily. I managed to put it off for another hour, but I could think of little else. Finally, I asked God about it. I started getting the feedback I always get when I question God about something. It usually manifests itself in the form of Biblical script. This time it was along the lines of entertaining angels unaware, the good samaritan, and Jesus saying I was hungry and you didn't feed me, etc. Pretty strong stuff. But what ultimately convinced me to go beyond personal discomfort was the alien thought that God had told the man to go there and wait because one of his people were there. That was enough for me. I never said a word to anyone. I took all the money I had and walked across the parking lot. The man looked at me warily. He probably thought I was going to tell him to move on. I imagine he got that a lot. I gave him my small wad of ones and said something to the effect of I don't have much, but he was welcome to it, but I was thinking of Acts 3:6 Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazereth, walk." He seemed taken aback, but he accepted it gratefully and thanked me. I was walking away as he did so.

About now you're probably doing the ooh and ah's thing, but hold that thought. Satan is like a pitbull. He doesn't let go easily. He didn't like what I did, less my motives for doing it, and he wanted to make sure I would never do anything like it again. He almost succeeded because I was kicking myself as I walked away. I felt more than foolish for on my way I noticed that the old man had a single bill of a much larger denomination than I had. I berated myself more than anyone could have. And then God stepped in. Suddenly none of that mattered. So what if someone saw me, laughed at me, ridiculed me. So what if he had more money at that moment than I did. Did I care more about what people thought, what I thought, or what God thought? What really mattered was that I believed God had told me something and I responded positively. I did what I believed God wanted me to do regardless of what anyone else thought, including me. I guess that's the whole point of the story. There were a multitude of reasons not to do what I did and only one reason why I should. For me that one was enough. What about you? Is one enough?

by Je' Leites