What Do You Do When You Hear From God?

So, I wrote a bomb blog yesterday about following God and allowing Him to direct your path, and then lost it. Some technical glitch that occured just when I was adding the title and getting ready to post. Clearly, God did not want that post published. On to the next.

Today, I'm thinking about honoring God's voice. What do we do when we hear from God? Hopefully, you listen to His guidance and His Holy word over your life. Unfortunately, that is not what we usually do. When God speaks to our hearts, we often turn away from God, or dismiss what has been spoken to our hearts. We will often hear, but not do. Or perhaps we hear from God, but do the opposite thing than what we heard. What is the cost of our actions? What do we lose by opposing God's vision for our lives?

Over my life, I've learned to listen to the still and quiet voice that I know to be God directing my path. I do so, because every time I've turned away from God's voice my life has gone astray and the way back to Him has been full of bumps in the road. I also follow through with action when I hear from God, because no action gets me nowhere and God did not give me a spirit of fear.

Nearly thirty years ago, I heard a pastor give an analogy to this very thing, Christians turning away from God and doing their own thing because we think we know best. The pastor was not the pastor of the church, nor was he the guest speaker for the day. He was a visiting pastor who was sitting on the deyis and who was asked to say a few words. This is my paraphrasing of those words...

Christianity or being a believer and follower of Christ is like a flowing river. Everything you need in your Christian walk is in the river. There is only for you to stay in the river. In the river there are boulders to go over, fish to pass, and rapids to go down. If you stay in the river everything God desires for you to experience to get to your blessing or your miracle will take place in the river. If you need to be stronger, there will be events in the river to make you stronger. If you need to have more experiences before He grants you your dream job, those experiences will happen in the river. If you need to bear a heavy load that would ordinarily seem unsurmountable, you will bear smaller loads in the river that prepare you for the heavier burden yet to come. So, stay in the river.

The problem with Christians is that we get out of the river. We are in the river and past a signpost that states, "You will have a children's ministry, or a music ministry, or a husband, or a wife, or kids." Notice the future tense... "will have." Christians do not heed the future tense, and run with children's ministry, music ministry, husband, wife, or kids. In believing that the blessing is to be given now, Christians swim to the bank of the river, crawl up the bank and out of the river to search the surrounding forest for the blessing God promised. But notice the sign post did not say to do anything. The signpost only said that the blessing would occur. Christians crawl out of the river looking for their blessings only to get lost in the forest that surrounds the river.

Not only do Christians get lost in the forest looking for what God promised them in the river, they lose ground toward receiving the blessing. Instead of experiencing the life God has for them to get what God has promised them, Christians wander around in the forest looking for their blessing all the while wondering why they do not yet have what was promised . If only the Christian would get back in the river.

At some point, the Christian will find their way back to the river, but when they do they are far upstream. In their wandering the Christian has stumbled up hill and re-enters the river in a place they have already been. Now the Christian must re-live experiences to get back to where they first received the signpost of the pending blessing just to get back on the path God had for them in the beginning.

The message is clear, stay in the river to receive God's blessings for your life.

Isn't that a holy word? Stay in the river of God's love so you can receive the blessings that God has promised.