We have all had days where we are wondering in our minds, “Lord why don’ you speak to me.” Sometimes it may be with regards to a specific situation and we don’t seem to hear from him. Key word being seem.
I recall the story of Elijah (1 Kings chp. 19:4-13) When he was wanting to hear a word from the Lord and he was desperate for it. The Lord passed by in a wind, then in an earthquake, then in a fire. In all of those big motions the Lord didn’t speak, but finally He spoke as a still small voice. There is much to be said concerning Elijah’s experience because we have all had the same desperation and even awaiting expectation for God to speak/perform in a huge way. I’m not going to go into all the avenues of lessons in his story. I’ll try to stick to one theme here, but I encourage you to meditate on this further.
Now the wind that passed by Elijah was no ordinary wind. It actually broke a mountain down into pieces of rocks.(1Kings 19:11) That’s the type of wind you hide from in a bomb shelter. Think about the situation. You are all alone. You’ve asked God to speak and here comes a vicious wind that’s destroying mountains, followed by an earthquake, and a fire. If you were Elijah you may have been expecting God in that too. Although winds, earthquakes, and fire haven’t passed by us we have had our expectation of how God was going to answer. We want that prayer about our finances to be answered, but God could be speaking to you to give. You don’t hear God’s instruction due to being so focused on how you think the answer should come.
Elijah’s story teaches us:
- God speaks gently.
- Let go of your expectation
- Be obedient to the small things
- Open your boundaries for what God wants to say
Number four is especially important. Too often we just want God to tell us what we want to hear and be on our way. We aren’t open to hearing from God about anything else…only what we prayed about. Self-centeredness will keep you deaf to the unction of the Holy Spirit. John 16:26 says that “[the Holy Spirit] will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.”
Pay close attention to the fact that he will be reminding us of things he already taught. Which means you can go back to the 4 Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and read what Christ was teaching. Whatever He taught, the Holy Spirit will come and remind. The common theme we know about God and His character is His selflessness, self-sacrifice and love for others. It is impossible to do the will of God and only focus on ourselves. We aren’t fulfilling His kingdom and therefore won’t be able to hear from Him. (1 John 4:11-12,20-21) Obviously there is more that concerns God other than making us millionaires. We have to open and surrender ourselves to hearing those things which is priority to the Father.
We shouldn’t be so self absorbed that all we want to hear is what concerns us. Of course we do pray for our selves, family, finances etc. This is not condemnation for praying for our situation (far from it). This is a challenge to open our ears to (a) how we hear God (b) His response. As we open our hearts to be like Christ we’ll hear from heaven more frequently, but we can’t put boundaries on what we’re willing to hear. Putting a limit on what you want to listen to is the same as saying I don’t want to hear anything else. For example: You may have limits on what you watch on tv. “I’ll only watch cartoons and that is my limit.” You are saying I don’t want to watch reality shows or the history channel. Or “I only listen to Christian music.” Is the same as saying I don’t listen to rap. I only want to hear from God concerning me, is the same as saying, “Don’t speak to me concerning anything/anyone else but me.” Pretty blunt but true. The Holy Spirit has so much more to speak to us about, but we’ll never hear him if we filter Him through what it is we want to hear.
Let’s open our ears and be prepared in our obedience to His response. This is a part how we live out the will of God in our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment