Say What?

Q: Does God speak to people? Why?
A: Yes. Because.

Good answer, huh?! I believe desiring to hear and know God is one of the most important things we can do. Period. Being able to hear God is worth all the marbles. The more I desire to hear God, the more I learn and I grow. God is a mystery, and He is beyond us. So we will never figure Him out, never reduce Him to an easy equation (you do X and then God does Y), and we probably will always have doubts and questions about hearing God. But God can and will speak to, teach, guide, and love us.


A few points:
God never does anything until he reveals his plans (Amos 3.7). God will give you wisdom (James 1.5). God will tell you which way to go (Isaiah 30.21). God proclaims bold promises - for a reason (Isaiah 45.19). God teaches you (Isaiah 48.17-18). Listen to God (Ecc 5.1). Listen to God - He is speaking (Hebrews 12.25). He teaches you everything you need to know (1 John 2.27).

Ok, great. But what exactly are we supposed to do AFTER God speaks to us? If He says to do something, then obedience is obviously what we need to do, but usually it is not easy. What about when God doesn't map out the details and give us action steps? What then?

It's not really a deal where if we don't do x, all God's plans are going to fail. It is more of an invitation to just believe - to exercise our faith (which makes God very happy). The easy mistake is thinking everything depends on our success - that it's about us. If we try to force a result, it probably won't work, we will get discouraged, start to doubt God, and then things will hit the proverbial fan. Here's an illustration of how God operates:

One day God set a bush on fire, and then declared He was going to rescue His people. Then He said Moses was going to lead them out of captivity, and as a sign, Moses would come back to that place afterwards (which is, in fact, a terrible sign, because signs are supposed to be BEFORE something). Well, after Moses lead God's people out of captivity, he did not make a beeline back to the bush on the mountain. Instead, He followed God one day at a time. God EVENTUALLY lead them back to the mountain. I think this means that when God tells us something, our job is to believe it, and follow Him step-by-step until HE accomplishes His purpose.