Itsara

This will (finally) be the last post on this Hearing from God thing. Last post I started to explain what went into our decision that staying with Im Jai House was God’s will, and therefore what we were going to do. I talked about what the Bible said, the circumstances that opened to us, and our consciences that spoke to us. Then I mentioned a dream. (more…)

Recently we have made the decision to stay at Im Jai and become house parents, rather than starting our own orphanage. We did this based entirely (so we believe) on God’s will as he has revealed it to us, but how did he do that? I want to explore that a little here as a practical example of the stuff I’ve been talking about. It looks like this will be the first of two posts. (more…)

When I started this, I said there were primarily four ways that God has spoken to me: through the Bible, my conscience, direct words, and circumstances. I have spoken of all but the last so far. I’m going to talk about the reliability of circumstances and the specific issues of debt and pain. (more…)

Today I’m just going to talk about my own experience with dreams a little bit. I’ve had a few dreams that I’m sure were from God, though I can only say that now because I have seen since that what those dreams spoke of was true. At the time I only thought they were from God, but not absolutely sure. How did I even know that much? And how did I have any idea what the dreams meant? To the second question, the answer is that usually I didn’t. Most of my dreams were of someone else, and when I told that person they knew immediately what it meant. Some dreams simply evoked strong feelings or confirmed what I was already pretty sure God was telling me. And some dreams I didn’t know what they meant until long afterwards (some I still don’t know what they mean - if they mean anything at all).

When I think a dream might be from God, I usually write it down, or, if I think it was for another person, I’ll tell that person. After that, I just wait and see. Sometimes the dream means something, sometimes not. If it’s for me (which is rare), it’s usually just confirmation of something else. Rarely have I ever acted solely on the basis of a dream.

The dreams that I have had for other people have a certain unique quality to them that my other dreams don’t have. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. They’re far more vivid and real than most of my other dreams, and they have often come with strong feelings - usually of compassion - towards the other person. I’ve only learned through trial that these dreams have been for other people. Only by taking the risk of telling the person have I learned for sure that these dreams have been from God.

That’s the other thing about listening to God in dreams, visions, and prophesy: we have to get over our fear of being wrong. We usually shouldn’t go around saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” as the old prophets often did - I have rarely been that certain about this stuff until I had the benefit of a long hindsight. It’s better, especially when we’re still learning what is God and what isn’t, to say something like, “I feel as if God is saying this to you.” And when you speak, speak in love. In the middle of Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians on the use of tongues and prophecies, he spends significant time on the vital importance of love. Even if the gifts are from God, if they are not exercised in love then they might as well not be exercised at all.

Pray for love and understanding, wisdom and discernment, and don’t be afraid to look like a fool. A fool for Jesus is a prince in His Kingdom, while a man who looks good to the world is often just a fool. After the next post (about listening to God in our circumstances), I’ll share a recent, concrete example of this dream stuff (along with the other aspects of listening) as it has applied to our decision to be house parents at Im Jai.

I finally remembered to upload some of our Hawaii pictures. I uploaded a lot because I won’t be able to take more for a while (see next paragraph) and because Hawaii is just beautiful. If these pictures are any good, it has nothing to do with me. A monkey could take good pictures in this place (once he figures out how to turn the camera on, of course).

Unfortunately, these will be the last pictures for a while - at least until we can get a new battery charger, since ours died halfway through our vacation. If I can’t find one out here, I’ll get someone to smuggle it in for me.

But who knows, maybe I’ll be able to post some pictures that other people have taken. I’ll certainly try. In particular, we just went to a fancy fundraiser dinner for Im Jai House, so we had to get all dressed up (which was difficult because we gave away a lot of our clothes thinking we wouldn’t need them). There are pictures of the event, so I’ll try to steal them from someone. I guess now that I’ve told you, I’ll have to.

Once again, I must stress that what I said in the last two posts holds here: hearing from God through the Bible is the only objective and straightforward method of hearing from God. These other methods must be subjected to it if they are to be trusted, but that doesn’t mean that they are any less important. In fact, what I’m going to talk about today (i.e. dreams, visions, and direct words from God) is a method supported completely by the Bible and exercised at some point by everyone in the Bible who claimed to speak for God. Even so, what we hear (or think we hear) needs to be tested against God’s Living Word.

That said, I’ll start with the Bible. Thousands of years ago, God said through one of his prophets, “And afterward [that is, after God has rescued his people from His judgment], I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” And lest we think that this message was not meant for us, but for some earlier (or later) people, Peter witnesses otherwise. (more…)

As I said in the last post on this, hearing from God through the Bible is the only straightforward thing I can tell you about hearing from God. It is also vital because it is the only objective part about listening to God, and all the remaining subjective aspects must be subjected to the test of God’s Word before they can be trusted at all. That said, the second way in which God has spoken to me in the past is through my own feelings and my conscience.

So often, when we seek God again and again for an answer to something, we already know what the answer is. More often than not, He has already said it in His Word, but just as often we know the answer within our hearts already. Whether we call it our conscience, our inner voice, our heart, the Holy Spirit, or the Shepherd’s still, small voice - it is this voice that we must learn to listen to. For even though we may already know what the answer is, our rationalizations and fears are right there, ready to tell us why that just can’t be the answer we’re looking for.

Many of us have ignored this voice for so long though that we no longer hear it. We have become dulled to it. When this happens, all we have left are the practical concerns of the world and the illusory security of man. The only way I know how to get out of this is to learn to quiet my heart and be honest with myself. To do that requires long, quiet times of introspection and prayer. It takes time for the worries of the world to become quiet - time and the presence of God - and it takes humility to be honest with myself.

There is also an aspect of listening to our heart where certain paths and decisions just feel right… or wrong. When all paths seem good, and the Bible does not seem to speak for or against any path, sometimes the Holy Spirit just gives us a slight nudge in our heart. For myself, I imagine what it would be like (or what I would feel like) if I chose one path or the other, and often I find that one path feels right, or another feels wrong, in a way I can’t otherwise explain.

Once we think we hear God’s voice in this way, we may still be unsure if what we are hearing is really God or not. That’s why this is only one piece of hearing from God. When we are unsure, we can look at the other ways in which He speaks to us and, most importantly, we can look to see what the Bible says. Also, the more we listen to what God has to say, the easier it will be to do so in the future. When we think we hear or feel something, and it fits with what the Bible says, and we act on it and find out that it was God’s voice, we will have learned what God’s voice sounds like the next time He speaks through our conscience.