Hearing His Voice!
Genesis 22:2- Then the Lord said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
I’m truly excited to write on this topic: Hearing His voice! I could never write a cogent, sound piece if I had not sufficiently heard Him! Observe the crystal clear instructions God gave Abraham! The name of the land is mentioned but the mountain would be named later as Abraham trusts and obeyed the first set of instructions. Are you with me? If you have failed to obey in the first stage, the next stage would never happen. The Bible then becomes a ‘closed book!’ His ways are not fuzzy and blurred; He would clearly guide you – if you are ready to obey the voice. We would be able to sing with David ‘ He leads me beside still waters!
After a gap of couple of years a young lady who used to read scriptures during my sermon called me, I answered immediately addressing her name, she was stunned, I replied, ‘your voice has got stuck in my heart and memory.’ It’s by experience and familiarity that we remember voices! So with God! If you have shelved Him into the backyard and lived life to the full, and now when things go downhill, you want Him to bail you out and speak loud and clear to you - it does not work that way. Come back to God to get clear guidance from Him. Ephesians 5:14”Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light..” You got to walk out of some stuff if you need God to walk into your life! Do you hear me? Proverbs 11:3 “The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.”
There are some crazy stuff I hear about hearing the voice of God and being led by Him, here are some: ‘the preacher smiled at me and I knew God is calling me for ministry’, ‘my friend kept persuading me so I knew it was God’s will that I go ahead’, ‘ I kept walking because the way was clear’ and much more that I hear from Bible reading Christians. Every open door is not the right door! Beware! It is not enough that we sit in the front row of the church and hear sermons week after week, we got to hear the voice of God in the sermon preached. Are you there? If you have planned to take a comfortable seat under the fan and kept your mobile in ‘vibration mode’ – just in case of emergency; then mark it your heart would be distracted. Several years back, I remember attending an afternoon meeting in the sweltering heat in Chennai, I was in the auditorium a couple of hours before the stipulated time and I was on my knees praying for God’s will with tears rolling down my cheek, oblivious to the crowd around me. When the preacher walked on the platform, my heart was prepared to hear God’s voice, and I was saturated with His presence. At the end of the meeting, with both hands lifted up, a mother of two small kids then, I surrendered my life for full-time ministry as my husband kept watching me stunned. I still use that date as my password! I have not forgotten that preacher, I still send him my tithes as gratitude and I have not gone back in my commitment to God.
Here’s the truth: If your heart desires to follow God and you are seeking His will, you can’t go wrong. He gives wisdom and direction abundantly. (James 1:5) A prepared heart is necessary to hear His voice! Jesus said: John 10:27”My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
