Hearing God

Tonight at InterVarsity, a senior student spoke about hearing God's voice. It was a really thorough talk and she did a great job. Here are a couple of thoughts that struck me.

Communication is what makes the difference between "Jesus time" and living intimately together.
It's important to carve out consistent time to meet with the Lord, but it's equally important to continue the conversation all day. The wonderful thing about Him, I'm learning, is that He really wants to live life with me, and He has lots of things to say all the time! "How precious are Your thoughts towards me, O God! How great the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:17) If God has a great sum of thoughts towards me, I don't think He just sections them off for my quiet time. I think He wants to tell them to me all day long, as they come to Him and as they apply to where I am and what we're doing together.

In Islam, Allah only speaks Arabic. Our God, the Living God, speaks all languages - English, French, Spanish, Ebonics. He speaks in the vernacular, and He can speak to me in my vernacular.
The student speaker, at this point in her talk, cited God's use of visions in the Bible to speak to different people, and then even shared her own story about how God used images from her childhood to minister to her and heal her heart in hard transitional phases of her life. This really resonated with me because God speaks to sometimes in inside jokes that only make sense to me - and when I try to explain them to other people, the words He tells me sometimes don't make as much sense or don't hit them as deeply as they hit me...which can be rather discouraging. I'm learning that when I receive that sort of affirmation from the Lord, to either really treasure it up in my heart and keep it to myself, or to provide a firm context to others when I share that word with them. This also reminds me that God loves me so much He really knows me enough to learn myspeak well enough to use it to penetrate my heart. He's such an involved God.

To hear God, you have to still yourself down.
Our souls are constantly talking. They're talking about the amazing lunch we had or the new shoes we just bought or worrying about the bill that was a little high or the neighbor that looked at us funny...and that's okay. God created our souls just like He created colors and emotions for a reason. They're not bad. However, it's really, really hard to listen to someone if you're constantly talking. That's why it's so important to quiet our souls before God when we meet with Him.  We have the power to command our souls to be still, just like we have the authority to command them to rejoice. "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10a