To Talk to God

Today’s post is somewhat hard to put into words. My final goal from Lukewarm Obedience is to Talk to God. How do you talk to someone who can’t talk back? Or can He?

I am going to do my best to explain talking to God for people who have never done it before. It’s complicated and definitely a “you know it when you see it” type thing. This is completely based on my opinion and experience, it is still about your own personal relationship with Him.

Often, we talk about prayer and how essential it is to developing a relationship with God. It is vital, but beyond that, there are some serious issues with focusing solely on prayer for interaction with God as we choose to define it. Even in my How I Learned How to Pray post, I spoke on Praise, Thanks, Confess, Ask, and Intercession, but even that is limited. A lot of talking to God is pausing, waiting, and listening.

Pause

Stop. Be still. Learning patience is a difficult thing for us to do in today’s world. We rush everything. We want our food, dreams, and even weddings fast. We want relationships to just work. We want the perfect job to just materialize. We want all our desires to just be instantly fulfilled and if we can’t have it at that moment, we will switch to the next best thing. However, the next best thing isn’t always the thing for us. Sometimes the next best thing is just trouble.

I’ve rushed many things before. I’ve taken jobs because of desperation only to quit weeks later. I’ve jumped into commitments because of lust, only to have headaches. I’ve taken too much on to the point were I burned myself out, only to find out God had something already worked out. Instead of jumping to the next option when things don’t work out the way you thought, take a moment and think am I doing too much? Am I forcing something that will come when it’s time? One thing I’ve learned is that if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Haste, on the other hand, will often lead you to making even more mistakes and things backfiring on you.

Wait

Another issue is that we start losing it when God is already on the move. Whether if it is to do something or just a response to our requests for Him in our lives, things take time. Sometimes, we are waiting because God is moving things around. He’s creating a better opportunity for that job. He’s bringing your potential spouse from a far away location. He’s waiting on you to learn a specific lesson that will equip you better for the challenge ahead. Patience is a hard thing to gain but God will make sure you learn it.

Another thought about waiting is that it’s not the same thing as doing nothing. God often wants us to continue to build, grow, or take a moment and look around. Sometimes we spend so much time looking for the finish line that we miss small pleasures along the way. I know that I often struggle with this because I am constantly worried about taking care of my necessities. I will freak out planning what I am going to do months from now, ignoring the things I need to do today. Sometimes we need to stop what we are doing and be patient because we often will miss our the moments God is talking to us.

Listen

Listening is one of the most underrated skills ever. We don’t listen enough. I brought up prayer because we spend a lot of time talking to God but never pause long enough to hear Him talk back. God has multiple ways of talking to us that most of us don’t even realize. God will still talk to you in a calm voice, but that isn’t His only method. He will speak to you through others. He will give you signs in the actions of the world around you. Sometimes, you will just feel that comfort while your mind leads you to a certain thought. All these things can be God talking back to you.

However, my largest and most important caveat is that you must develop discernment to tell the difference between God’s voice and the devil. The devil will arrange things that could easily be disguised as the Lord’s doing but it won’t be. God will never ask you to do something ignore the consequences. God will never have you do something against His Word (which is the importance of reading the Bible). Most importantly, God Will is always accompanied by peace. If you don’t have peace, it’s not of God.

I’ve learned that talking with God is less about talking and more about listening. To be a good listener, you have to speak less. You can’t always be looking for something or in a rush. It often takes putting your own desires, viewpoints, and wishes to the side to focus on other things. God still speaks, we just don’t know how to listen.

Turn Your Brightness Up!

#BeMagnificent🔆