Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
10 21 2024
Does God Speak through our Experiences?
Are You Listening?
Do you remember the story of the religious fanatic who was caught on his roof during a flood? A rescue team came by in a boat, and he said no, thank you. God is going to deliver me. Night came, and the waters rose. He climbed to the top of the chimney and a helicopter came by And said take the rope ladder. No, thank you God is going to deliver me. Once in heaven, he complained to the Lord that he had not kept his promise “to save the needy from death.” Psalm 72:13, the Lord said, what do you mean,
I sent you a boat and a helicopter.Â
I wish I knew 30 or 40 years ago what I know today. I kinda used to be like this man who didn’t believe circumstances or experiences had anything to do with hearing God’s voice. What little bit I knew was that God spoke in the Bible, but not so much in circumstances or in feelings. Either no one ever taught me or I never understood that God often speaks to us in our experiences. He can use an illness, a tragedy, or any kind of trial to get our attention and bring correction to us. C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, Speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. In essence, it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world”. As I have grown older, and I would like to think wiser,
I have learned every trial in life can become an occasion for God to speak to us.
What about you? Have you learned from experience that a trial can come upon us because of our sin or neglect of something important to God?
Jack Deere makes an important point in his book “Surprised by the Voice of God.” He says Haggai, Malachi, and Joel, Prophets from the Old Testament, teach us that God may speak to us through unpleasant circumstances. Some Christians never ask God about their unpleasant circumstances. We assume that negative events are simply a part of life; some of us just grit our teeth and face our trials with stoic resolve. As a result, way too many of us never learn what God wants to teach us in hard times.
Others seem to assume that every negative circumstance is a result of Satan’s personal opposition to our lives. I want you to see this assumption can keep us from hearing God. If God has permitted a trial to lead us to repentance or refine us and we assume it is only Satan, we will never seek the repentance, nor the change God wants to bring in us. I’ve often believed that we are doomed to continue making the same mistakes until we learn our lesson. I believe many trials in our lives are prolonged because we failed to hear what God is saying to us in the trial or the test and we get to experience it again and again until we do.
It’s why I believe so strongly in journaling. I keep a day planner throughout the week and write in it religiously different things to do, important assignments, a thought that I want to remember later. And towards the end of the week, I always go back and take a look at what I may have forgotten. to determine what has changed or what is it that I need to do before the end of the week.
I believe that journaling and talking to God every day for even just a few minutes allows you to write down your questions for God. The thoughts and trials that you’re struggling with. And writing down in your quiet time, what comes into your mind and what your heart seems to be speaking or complaining about.
What I’ve often found is that when I go back a few days later or a week and reread those entries, I discover that God has worked some of them out. I could actually see his intervening hand, solving those problems for me. But if I had not gone back to reread those entries, I would’ve missed God speaking through the circumstances of my life.
I discovered that the Holy Spirit does speak to us through circumstances or events that have nothing to do with suffering. Jeremiah 18 1–6 speaks about a potter at work, and the writer hears God say to him that just as the potter can shape the clay in any way he chooses, so God could do whatever he pleases with the nation of Israel. Doesn’t that apply to us, too?
- Is it surprising that God can easily change us and make use of us in any way he chooses?Â
- God will remake, restore, heal, and forgive Israel, even though they have sinned and turned away from him. Just like us!
- God will work with what is available, including both positive and negative factors.Â
- God will provide a new beginning for the people of Israel, even after they are enslaved in Babylon.Â
Jeremiah must leave his familiar spaces and learn about God and his people by watching the potter at work. The potter’s work with the clay illustrates God’s ability to work with positive and negative factors to shape Israel into the best possible vessel.
When our attention is drawn to a specific circumstance or event, we should become alert to the possibility that God may be speaking to us through it.
Can I give you perhaps a less obvious example? The men who wrote books like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job were certainly “anointed observers” of human experience. They saw God speaking in the common events of daily life, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they formulated their observations in the principles of life or proverbs.
Many of you who are reading are parents with grown children. And each of us at one time had to take the position of a wise parent wanting to teach their children how to stay out of sexual immorality.
Proverb 7-7 says, “I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment.” And you might’ve described to your child the process of how young people fall into sin and what it can potentially cost them. Out of your love, you were an “anointed observer”. You began by telling what you experienced, what you saw, and what you noticed. From your past experiences, you were able to discern a pattern of satanic temptation and warn your children. I love what it says in Psalm 37 David said, ” I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children, begging bread.” David was certainly an “anointed observer” of experience. As an old man, he realized that his repeated observation of God, always feeding the righteous, in fact, was a divine principle.
Windows of the Soul,Â
But you may say I’m not a David or a scripture-writing wise man. I’m just an ordinary Christian, who has difficulty understanding the plain words of the Bible, let alone seeing God’s hand in the fabric of everyday life. As I said earlier, perhaps no one has ever taught you how to look at the fabric of life. I pray that the Holy Spirit will open up your eyes so that you can see that God provides us, within encounters we make every day, (that serve as windows for our souls), to catch a glimpse of eternity and hear his voice. Remember Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous lines?
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God
But only he who sees takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Although the voice of God runs through all our experiences, most of us have diligently trained ourselves to ignore his voice and get on with the busyness of life.
What a waste. What I have described here is something we can all learn from. It just takes some time, intentionality, and discipline. What will it take? How hard must it become to learn that God’s voice is everywhere, in everything? He has much to say to his children, He is forever pursuing you with the love of a father.
Today, you read a devotion to start your day… What will it take for you to write down in your day planner…your journal this principle and the things you are struggling with or have questions about and see if this isn’t truly an opportunity to hear God like never before? It will change your life…your decision-making process and usher in a joy of the Lord you have only dreamed of.Â
Hearing and seeing the voice and hand of a loving Father God.Â
Excerpts taken from Jack Deere’s book “Surprised by the Voice of God.” Page 114-117
It Is Well – Kristene DiMarco | You Make Me Brave
