Does God Speak to You?

When people ask me this question, I answer it with another, “Do mean God doesn’t speak to you?” You can officially mark me down as a crazy person or whatever you like, I don’t care. But I initially turned from the world to face God because I heard a voice answer my silent plea, the plea of a lost and lonely sinner about to give up on life, “I’ve got to try something.” What I heard was a voice as real as any I’ve ever heard say right in my ear, “Why don’t you try God.”

As a militant atheist I turned to confront whoever it was that dared to say some invisible make-believe spirit might be the answer to my aching heart. There was no one there. At least there was no one there that I could see or find. So after an exhaustive search that turned up no one, I started searching for who might have been there that I couldn’t see. It was a search that eventually led me through the Gospels to Jesus. It was a search that led me from a dead-end life to a life filled with hope. I said all that to say all this: Have you ever felt God leading you to do something? It probably won’t be an audible voice. I am convinced that God only uses an audible voice for either the extremely hard-hearted/hard-headed or to comfort the extremely hard pressed. Instead he leads us through our spirit which is linked to Him through His Spirit which lives in us as born-again believers. If you aren’t one of those it’s easy. Just profess Jesus as Lord or leader of your life and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead…and that’s it. Done and done. So here we are children of God through adoption, made right with Him, spiritually standing in Daddy’s throne room, minding our own business and His Spirit leads us to do something: something that doesn’t seem like something we would want to do on your own…….say He leads us to spend everything we have to buy Bibles to give to homeless people. What should we do?

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I’m talking about spending way more money than our natural head says we can afford. It just doesn’t make sense when we look at our budget through natural eyes. And the wisdom of the world tells us, “Come on. Most of the homeless you give a Bible to will either lose it or throw it away.” Or, “Come on they’ll only listen to you witness about what Christ has done for you and accept the Bible so they can get a handout or something.” But there it is again, an urging, a leading to do this thing that makes no sense. It itches at our hearts. It won’t leave. We feel our spirit saying, “If I don’t do this I’ll miss an opportunity to do what I’m supposed to do,” while our head says, “Are you crazy you can’t afford to do that!” Over and over our heads, filled with natural sense knowledge keep shouting, “If I spend all that money just to give it away I won’t have it for what I need.” Or the ever ready, “Can’t someone else do it? Like someone who has more money.” God isn’t looking for ability He’s looking for availability. If He can make donkeys speak and use murderers to being people back to life, turn water into wine, and save sinners like us He can surely provide for all our needs. If we want to see the miracles of God we need to follow Him into uncharted water. We need to do what He calls us to do because where God guides God provides. Walking in faith always sensitive to what He calls us to do and then following Him in the doing … that’s the way to see the miracles of God. Faith isn’t doing only what we can do on our own. Faith is doing what God calls us to do even when we know we can’t. Let’s step out of the boat and feel the waves beneath our feet.