CAN'T YOU TALK LOUDER GOD? (S.Shultz) Chapters 1-6

CAN'T YOU TALK LOUDER, GOD?
Secrets to Hearing the Voice of God
Steve Shultz  - Destiny Image Publishers, 2007
(All bullets are quotes from the book unless otherwise noted.)

SATURDAY, November 15    Ch. 1 - Did God Really Say...?

Isaiah 30:21  GNT

If you wander off the road to the right or the left, you will hear his voice behind you saying, “Here is the road. Follow it.”

• Doesn’t it make sense that God would want to communicate His will and purposes to His people? Communication is at the heart of all relationships.  How can there be a deep, personal relationship with God if there is no communication?
• Every addiction in the world is a cheap substitution for being addicted to God.
• I fervently believe that God is the voice behind us because he has our back covered. (SS)

            So….I move from God-Gifts of Grace to hearing the voice of God.  I’m not so sure the subject matter is really that different,  just the approach.  Are not each of my 350 moments of God-Grace messages from God?  Communication from God?  I think so….so God has got me listening.  Now to better interpret what I hear. 

            I also think this book will blend in beautifully with my latest artistic endeavor….the God-text cards.  The whole premise behind my photography of letters naturally occurring in my world is that God is speaking to me through them.  I just love it when everything seems to sync together! 

            How DOES God speak?  How do we avoid listening to the ‘Non-God’ voices in our face when God seems to speak in a much less confrontational manner?  God sometimes thunders, but so much more often it is a nudge, an inclination, a small voice, a dream, a vision, a piece of Scripture, an interaction with another.  I really liked the last book quote, “God is the voice behind us because he has our back covered.” God can see what is ahead even when we can’t.  He is looking out for us, whispering the right path.  May I learn to better recognize the voice.  May I learn to listen.  May I learn to act on what I hear.  

SUNDAY, November 16  - WHAT IF?

1 Corinthians 6:19 GNT

 Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God.

• What if Jesus told you he enjoyed your daily chats together?
• Your challenge is to grasp, once and for all, that since He lives IN you, you cannot help but hear him - that is, it’s simply impossible not to hear him speak.

            Sometimes we have been hearing God (as the author says, it’s hard not to HEAR a voice that is part and being of who we are) but we fail to LISTEN.  Our challenge now is to listen intentionally, to carry on the conversation on purpose, and to let Jesus/God know we want to be an active part of this conversation. 

        

    I have started reading this book at the same time I am going to take part in The 'Before Amen' Prayer Challenge (Max Lucado) to pray for 4 minutes a day: active prayer.  I guess this will be a good opportunity for that intentional conversation!  Lucado begins with a ‘pocket prayer’ – short and sweet for those moments and times when you need to converse and know not what to say: Father, you are good.  I need help.  Heal and forgive me. They need help.  Thank you. Amen.   Who doesn’t have time for these words every day? 

MONDAY, November 17   My Sheep Hear My Voice

John 10:27 GNT

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

• News flash! According to holy Scripture, ….you would not be serving Christ today had you not listened specifically to the Father’s voice when He taught you and showed you how to follow Jesus.  Welcome …to the School of the Spirit!”

            Author Shultz relates a story of a time as a young man he tried to prove his point with Scripture, and discovered his mind went blank for the specifics.  But his Bible fell open to a completely different passage he had never read before that opened his thinking to a more liberating, truthful viewpoint.  He credits the work of the Holy Spirit speaking to him and, in effect, forcing him to listen! 

            We hear God’s voice.  We know our Shepherd and we try to follow.  Not always faithfully, not always on a direct path.  We wander.  But the voice of our Shepherd Spirit is with us, in us, and ALWAYS speaking to us.  

TUESDAY, November 18  Today, When You Hear His Voice…

Hebrew 3:15 GNT

“If you hear God's voice today,
    do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were
    when they rebelled against God.”

• The Holy Spirit speaks in our language, often into our thoughts; so, we actually hear God speak even when we don’t realize we’re hearing Him.  ….begin to learn to distinguish which are your thoughts and which belong to God.
• What I didn’t realize… is how many whens during my todays were ahead of me.
• There is a fear factor in learning to hear God’s voice.

            Many Scripture translations word this passage as ‘If you hear…’ but the original Hebrew considers every day today, continual time.  So it should be WHEN!   The faint nudges we feel to act in a certain way?  The thought that intrudes that we need to respond?  A vision that passes before our eyes?  Often God speaking!  But we write it off as having crazy notions, or that would be embarrassing.  We let fear ‘harden our heart’ to action. 

            I would think author Shultz is making God-talk, but his anecdotes correspond to moments I have felt and can’t deny that perhaps I didn’t listen to God’s requests.  When I see someone who needs help, I know what I could do, yet I still ignore it.  And yet the God-grace that fills my life when I do act!   This is something we LEARN to recognize; we have to practice the skill of knowing when God is speaking and when our hopes and fears are interfering. 

WEDNESDAY, November 19

 You Can’t Stop God; He’s Already Speaking!

Isaiah 55:11 MSG

So will the words that come out of my mouth
    not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
    they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

• God’s people can – and do – hear God’s voice.  Not just a select few, but all of us!
• I can boil an all-day course on hearing God’s voice into just three simple words: ‘Follow your impressions.’
• Normally, if God or an angel speaks or acts, we are not aware of it…until after the story is over.
• HOW we hear God’s voice – through our own filters – is another story altogether.

            What God says will happen, happens.  As The Message writes, God’s words do not come back empty-handed.  If we learn to recognize and acknowledge God’s voice in our lives and then act upon it, we will find that grace happens as well.  The point of this chapter is that God is speaking all the time and will continue to do so.  Coincidences?  No!  God at work.  Chance encounters?  No!  God at work.  Right place at the right time to help someone?  God at work.  We might not even realize (and often don’t) that God has spoken to us through an impression or ‘urge’ and we made a difference. 

            If God is already speaking, then the point is for us to do a better job of listening, active listening that helps us filters out the other noise and focus on the God voice.  Listening that produces a response.  The response is the ‘work I sent them to do’ – we will complete God’s assignments when we clearly hear His voice.  

            I’m trying to shorten the three simple words to a God-text (I don’t do words over 10 letters!)  How above ‘Heed God’s hint’?  ‘Follow your hunch?’ ‘Go with your gut’? ‘Intuition may be God’?  The possibilities could be endless…..just like God. 

THURSDAY, November 20  DIVINE APPOINTMENTS

Isaiah 55:11 GNT

So also will be the word that I speak—
    it will not fail to do what I plan for it;
    it will do everything I send it to do.

• God is in control in the affairs of man.
• We simply don’t know how many divine appointments we have had in our lives that have perhaps saved our lives.

            The author shares a great anecdotal story, but never really gives his definition of what a divine appointment looks like, other than God in control to work the hearts and actions of man to a certain, specific purpose.  This isn’t a term I use often, so I googled it!  According to the Dictionary of Christianese (sounds pretty official!),

            Divine appointments are similar in nature to Godincidences, God winks, and checks in your spirit. These Christianese terms all refer to ways that Christians feel like God is trying to steer us into a specific encounter or experience so that we can serve God or maybe play a part in the lives of other people. (http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/divine-appointment/)

            How are these appointments scheduled?  By God – through a series of impressions, urges,  or visions that bring together multiple circumstances to all converge on a single act of God grace.  They are scheduled by God speaking to people in such a way that they often don’t even realize they are hearing God and responding.  Improving our sensors to the voice of God will only improve our ability to serve as an agent of God.  That’s a schedule we want to keep!