You can't hear God when you're running (away)

 You can't hear God when you're running (away).  Let me explain with the example of Jonah.

Jonah ran away from the call of God on His life,

and sometimes we can do the same in smaller and less obvious ways,

and ones that do not end up with us being thrown into a stormy ocean, being swallowed by a whale, spat out again, and washed up on a shore much to the surprise of anyone who saw him. 

Can you imagine what Jonah looked like? I have never really thought about that until recently.

Pale, slimy, stinky, with shriveled skin from being wet for three days.

By the way, the account about Jonah can't be a 'made up' story to prove a point, because the whole of Scripture is truth, with real history not fables or moral stories, and because Jesus spoke about Jonah's time in the whale Himself.

Matthew 12:40 "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

So ...

If God speaks to us in our five minutes of listening time to Him and asks us to do something, and we choose to go in the opposite direction as Jonah did, we can't be surprised if things do not go very well for us. 

There is always a bigger picture involved than we realize, concerning why God is asking something from us.

I have written about God asking me to apologize to someone and be reconciled. It did not go well for me during my three years of running away from what He had asked.

 What if God asks us to do something else?

I remember the first time God asked me to give one of my possessions away. It was shortly after I had responded to Jesus' offer of salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life, and you would have thought my response would have been immediate obedience.

Not immediate...

My fragile humanity didn't yet understand (this work is still in progress) that in Jesus I have everything, and all the blessings and resources of heaven are mine, and God is my provider, and He wants to pour blessing into my life so I can bless others. 

God asked me to give away an object that at the time was precious to me. I'm not going to tell you what it was, because it will sound ridiculous that I couldn't let go of it immediately.

 I struggled for a few days, but then I released it, and gave it to the person God had said, and guess what?

 We were both blessed, and doors of spiritual blessing opened to me as a result of passing the gentle challenge to see where my true treasure lay.

Thankfully in this example my response was quite quick in obedience, but in my former example of three years of running away from what God wanted me to do, my spiritual life suffered, and doors of opportunity were firmly shut in my face until I came to my senses.

Was God being mean during those three years?

No God was being kind!

He wanted freedom and blessing for me and my friend. He wasn't going to bless my disobedience, because that would cause us both harm in the long term.

Was God being mean to Jonah?

 Three days in the belly of a big fish must have been deeply unpleasant, but God caused the events because He was looking at the bigger picture. He had asked Jonah to do something that would cause blessing to others, and bless him when he came to his senses about it. God explained it clearly to him at the end of the account. Read the whole book and see.

Jesus says in Matthew 12:41 "They (the men of Nineveh) repented at the preaching of Jonah..."

A whole city of people were saved from destruction, because Jonah finally obeyed God's voice. 

That is massive,

 an entire community of people; men, women and children affected in life and eternity by one person's obedience.

Maybe God has said something hugely significant for us to do, and we are currently running away? Can I please plead with us to pause, turn around, and go back to what God has said, and do it!

God wants to bless us and others.

Maybe we might say that we haven't heard God's voice for years. 

We need to remember what it was that He asked us to do, and we haven't quite got around to it yet, because we have been quietly running away hoping God won't notice.

Just saying He does notice...

and He won't bless our disobedience, because of His great love for us and others.

 

Maybe God has said something very tiny for us to do, like when He asked me to give something to someone else.

 Either way God's heart is for blessing, 

so 

it isn't the best idea to run away from what God has said to us.

Remember Jonah!

 

How can I tell if I am hearing God's voice?

 So....

We don't want our own imaginations, or another spirit with unhelpful ulterior motives to be leading us off track.

 How can we be certain we are hearing the voice of God through the person of His Holy Spirit?

One easy sign is if we hear words that our human spirit resists strongly, it is probably God asking us to do something our flesh doesn't want to do!

When I was at Bible college we were taught helpful words beginning with the letter "C" as a good initial checklist concerning what we heard in our minds when listening to God's voice.

I can't guarantee these are exactly the same as I was taught, because it has been a few decades, and I have also found a few others to add to a list.

In no particular order;

CLEAN 

If what we are hearing has anything evil, dirty, unpleasant or disturbing within the words it is not from God.

CLEAR

God is not the author of confusion, so if the words or ideas are muddled or chaotic they are not from God. 

CONCISE

Humans are great at waffling. When God speaks, He does not waffle, ramble, use loads of words when a few will do, use excessive repetition (He can repeat sometimes for emphasis), lose His train of thought or stop mid sentence.

CALM

God will never rush us with an idea, be manipulative concerning our response, never shout at us, or cause us 'to leap before we look' as it were. His words will not be urgent or stressed, driving us to do something.

CONVICTING

There is a huge gulf between conviction (a gentle prompting bringing awareness of sin, leading to repentance, and drawing a person closer to God) and condemnation (a harsh overwhelming sense of shame, driving a person away from God). God will never move to the condemnation side with His words. That is the territory of the enemy and his kingdom, and we can be pretty good at self condemnation with our own thoughts too. God doesn't go there.

CONSISTENT

God will never use contradictory language or ideas. Again another thing humans are great at especially in today's world. God doesn't change, and neither will His Word, or His truth, much to the upset of many who would desire to alter things to their particular preference. His words always make sense logically.

COMFORTING

The Holy Spirit is described as the Comforter, and so this attribute will come through what we are hearing. If we are troubled, distressed, or tormented by what we hear, it is not from God.

Jesus says in John 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

Let's practice hearing His voice for five minutes each day. 

It could change our lives for good.