here is something I wrote last month on the topic, my dad and I have a newsletter we work on together 6 or so times a year....I am a little nervous to post it here, but hopefully it will be encouraging. To sum up what I do when I am feeling like you describe, I make the time to get into the word and prayer anyway, whether or not I am "feeling" the feelings I think should go along with.
Anyway, here is my article, kind of long.
( I just noticed in preview the margins and paragraph spacing are kind of crazy and I can't seem to fix that, hopefully it will not run together too much)
Don’t Leave Me Out!
I don’t often say out loud that I have heard from God. There are frequent times when I feel his presence, feel his words penetrate my heart, either through reading the bible, speaking with a friend or hearing some good teaching. God is good and faithful to reward those who seek Him, and I have certainly experienced that reward time and again in my life.
But, in spite of that, I don’t often say oh God told me this or that. I tend to temper it a little bit, fully aware that when God speaks to us, it has every capability to get intermingled with the human existence and convoluted completely. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am also fully aware that my hesitation in announcing that GOD TOLD ME SOMETHING comes, in part, from many years of watching my parents in ministry – there is a sheer crazy number of things people are willing to convince themselves, and others, that God said to them.) So instead, I will usually say I feel like God is showing me, or something I am learning is—because it sounds more tender and tolerable and leaves open the possibility that my interpretation of things is way off the mark.
A very impactful book in my life has been Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. When I first read it 10 years ago it really helped open my eyes to exactly how God communicates with us - through His word, through other people and through circumstances. Since that time I have started really paying attention and journaling about hearing Gods ‘voice’ in my life through these avenues. Times that someone will confirm something I am hearing somewhere else and then see it line up in the bible, or when a certain scripture reaches out and clutches at my heart, or when our pastor speaks on the very thing I have been grappling with all week—all ways of God speaking to us, showing us his intimate and personal love.
In the midst of that, there have been a few times in my life that I believe I have experienced the audible, unmistakable voice of God, where something heavy and thick and beautiful and unmistakable has nailed me to the floor in a life changing way. It can feel a bit wonky to say out loud, so you have no idea how hesitant I am to type it all out and mail it off. But it is rocking my world, so I include it with the prayer that it may rock yours too.
This fall I was spending time earnestly praying for a few people for a few people in our lives. Praying that God would show up powerfully in their life. That he would break the chains that kept them bound, help them see themselves the way that He sees them. That He would do something big and amazing and undeniably Him. One of my prayers was that they would really get the life changing power of the Word. One morning I woke up at 5 a.m. (and if you know me you can find the miracle in that alone
with this amazing charge in our room and a weight on my chest. Clear as day I hear and see this phrase "You want my Word to make a difference in the life of others, but you are not allowing it to make a difference in your own life". Is that earth shattering to read? Maybe not. It was earth shattering to me in that moment though , and even today as I sit here and tell you about it.
I slammed out of bed fully awake with the vast realization that God was right! I was pleading, hoping and praying that other people would grasp onto the life changing power of the Word of God when I was unwilling to develop the study of that same Word as a discipline in my life. My entire walk as a Christian had skated by on sound bites of great teaching and study, moments of revelation that buoyed me on to the next moment coupled with the residual knowledge I had gained from a lifetime of hanging around with my parents. It was all working okay. But not enough. Not nearly enough. In that moment I was struck with how much I lacked knowing God more. At the hamster wheel my spiritual life would continue running on, if I did not choose to rearrange my life around the one desire of knowing God more.
How much I want a hunger for the voice and presence and movement of God that only gets broader the more I fill it. I want a discipline that sits down, journal in hand, bible in lap, concordance nearby and loses track of minutes, hours while I soak up all that I can of who He was, is, and is still to come. I want a faith that is strong and at the ready, that is standing and waiting saying I am here Lord! Don’t leave me out! I am ready to be used by you! Whatever you are doing don’t leave me out! I want to be prayed up, read up, studied up and stored up for the cause of Christ, that I would not have prepare to be used by God but I would live prepared for every person and situation He may send my way.
I love it. A voice in my room at the breaking of that day that is changing my life in the most amazing way. The more I am seeking Him, cultivating the discipline in my life of seeking Him, the more I find I want to. The more I read and study just opens up doors to more that I want to read and study. For the first time in my life, He is not just there when I need Him—I am aware of how much He is just there all the time, and I want to need Him more.
Don’t leave me out, Lord. I am here and ready. I am willing to do whatever it takes. Any change I would pray for you to affect in another persons life, I am willing for you to affect in mine.
May you hunger for more,
and prayers to you!
Claire, Mama of two boys, Montessori Teacher, Star Mona Vie Distributor.
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