Did you ever play that game where you asked the question, “What would you do if you won $1 million?" What would you do? I asked my dad that question when I was about 10 years old. He looked at me very seriously and said “Martin, if I won a million dollars I would go to work, stand in my chair and pee on my desk.” Now…I know that my dad was trying to be funny, but have you thought about that question seriously? A question like that…It makes you think!! It gets to our perspective on life and it gives us a glimpse of our desires.
In the early years of the Head Start program, there was a study that involved 1600 children who were tested in a wide variety of categories, including divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is the ability to generate creative ideas by exploring possible solutions.
If I was to ask you to come up with as many uses for a paperclip as possible, the average person can rattle off 10 to 15 uses. A divergent thinker can come up with about 200.
In that long-term study, children age 3 to 5 scored in the genius category for divergent thinking. 5 years later… This number dropped to only 32%. 5 years later again it was down to 10%... what happened? Where did divergent thinking go? And what does that have to do with hearing God’s voice?
Most of us lose touch with who we really are and what we really want. Instead of following our God ordained desires, we tend to be more concerned about what people think rather than what God thinks. We even go so far as to think about what other people think we're thinking. It’s often the fear of people that keeps us from hearing and listening to the voice of God. We let expectations of others override the desires God put in our hearts.
I read again the story of Jesus healing a blind man just recently. He asked the blind man a very thought-provoking question. “What do you want me to do for you?” Why would he ask that question?
It’s because Jesus wants to know what we want.
If I took a poll in this room and asked each of you, “what you would want Jesus to do for you?” I bet 9/10 would have a hard time answering that question. What are the desires that God has put in your heart?
Which leads me to another thought… If you wanted to talk about the Godly desires that are brewing within you, would you have someone that you trust that you could talk to about something like this? Do you have someone who you can contact to test your thinking? To test what you believe the desires of your heart are? Could they help you sort out God’s call in your life? Would they be able to give you godly wisdom and insight?
What if someone came to you asking for that kind of godly wisdom and insight? What would you do if someone asked you to invest in them? That you would be for them…
• Spiritual mother or father
• spiritual grandmother or grandfather
• a mentor, friend
Would you be able to rely on your relationship with God in order to give that kind of direction?
Over the series, we’ve been trying to get at the heart of how God speaks to us. I call it a Kairos moment. A moment in time when God tries to get your attention. Chronos is sequential-past, present, future. It’s linear, moving in one direction. Chronos is a human construct. It’s how we humans measure time, but God exists outside of the space-time dimensions he created. So we have to be very careful not to put him in our clock, in our box.
Last Sunday we talked about how God gets our attention most often when we read the Bible. It’s his words to us, it’s the most common way that he speaks to us. However, it’s not the only way God speaks to us. Today I want to talk about how God uses our desires and how people can play a role in being the voice of God to us.
I want to share with you two Scriptures that will help us understand this concept of how God speaks to us through our desires and how he uses people to help clarify and sometimes, be God’s voice to us.
Romans 12:6-8 (NLT)
6 In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well.8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
The apostle Paul here tells us to use our God-given gifts in the pursuit of our desires. And he identifies 3 traits that should define how we use our gifts as followers of Christ: generously, responsibly, and gladly
The word “generously" comes from the Greek word ‘haplotes’ which means going above and beyond the call of duty. It’s the extra mile.
The word “gladly” has the idea of whistling while we work. It’s that A-game attitude.
The word “serious responsibly” is about excellence and attention to detail. It shows care and conscientiousness in everything we do. It hints at continual improvement. But diligence and or responsibility also means delighting in what we do. And when we do that… we actually worship.
When you have been given a gift, a talent, in combination with your personality and your experience, God often plants a desire for something greater within you. For some of you that may be…
• raising your children,
• telling more people about Jesus,
• seeing our church grow,
• giving God glory in your work, being the best you can be.
On the morning of July 11, 1924, Eric Lindell was preparing to run the 400 m race at the Paris Olympics. Lindell had withdrawn from the 100 m competition, a race he was favoured to win, because he refused to run on a Sunday. As he prepared for the 400 m race, which was not his strongest event, he was handed a slip of paper with a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 2:30 that said “Those who honour me I will honour.”
Lindell struggled with his calling to either be a missionary or continue running. He said this to his sister “God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.”
Life is too short not to love what you do, so do what you love. The key is finding the place where gifts and desires overlap. God-given gifts are what we’re best at. God-ordained desires are what we’re most passionate about. And the place where those gifts and desires overlap is your sweet spot.
In a perfect world that’s what happens. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Before we can truly decipher God’s desires it’s important for us to remove some of the obstacles. Or maybe you felt a godly desire and it has diminished or the passion for it has burned out?
Sometimes we’re not in that sweet spot. You might be asking the question, “What do I do… Where is my hope?”
Sometimes…
…you just need to pay the bills,
…get a job done,
…help when no one else wants to help.
This is when you use the gifts that God is giving you to complete the tasks that may not be in your sweet spot. To possibly bring some creativity or experience or skills into an area. That’s outside of your gifting.
When God does create those desires and you, he wants to speak to you through your desires. To ignore them is to ignore God’s voice.
God uses our desires in order to help guide us into what he designed us to do and to be. Our desires easily get derailed. Here are a few cautions:
1. Check Your Ego at the Door - did you know that you could actually be doing the will of God and God could oppose it? It sounds silly but it’s true. “God opposes the proud.” Having pride is letting your ego have the loudest voice. And attempting to do God’s will in a spirit of pride is 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.
2. If you wanted it too much, you might want it for the wrong reasons - if you wanted too much it’s often an indicator that you’re not ready for it. Why? Because it’s become an idol in your life.
3. Emotion is a great servant but a terrible master - don’t make decisions when you’re in an emotional frenzy or funk. It’s about impulse control, self-control… If you don’t feel in control when you’re trying to understand your desires. You may need to put some time in between. That’s how you get tattoos in the wrong places. That’s when you say things or do things you’ll regret. Ever written that email that you wish you never sent? You get the idea.
4. A little emotional intelligence goes a long way – that’s your ability to identify, assess, and control your emotions. Emotions are a gift from God. As we grow in a relationship with him, so does our emotional awareness and emotional intelligence. They express themselves as empathy for others.
So how do we figure out what those desires are? We might need the help of a wise and trusted friend, mentor or spiritual guide. That’s why God has put people in our life.
Now, God can speak through a donkey, but more often than not, he uses people. In the Bible, he used a prophet named Nathaniel to rebuke King David. He used an uncle named Mordecai to inspire Queen Esther. He used a spiritual father named Paul to encourage Timothy. God also puts people in our life to influence us. It’s our family and friends, coaches and teachers, and, I’d like to think, pastors. Don’t think that these people are in your life by chance. To do that would underestimate the sovereignty of God. He wants to use them to speak into our lives, and he wants to use you to speak into theirs.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT)
12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
We have this cloud of witnesses in our life that includes anybody and everybody who has influence in our lives. People play a significant role in the life of a believer. One of the ways that we live out the presence of God with each other is to be there when someone needs to share what’s going on internally. Not only do we need to come to terms with what’s going on inside us that others don’t know anything about, we need people, safe people, who can hear what we don’t want to speak of. To hear those things that we hide behind the façade. We cover it up with a Sunday smile. It’s secret sins we’ve never had the courage to confess and secret dreams we’ve never dared to verbalize. In order to come out from behind the façade it’s going to require some form of confession. I don’t just mean to God! Bible talks about us confessing our sins to one another and to pray for each other so that we may be healed. (James 5:17)
Confessing our sins to God is the forgiveness process. Confessing your sins to each other is part of the healing process.
People are also there to help us see our blind spots. We need somebody who’s willing to say things that need to be said. We need spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers who’ve ‘been there and done that’. We need friends who have permission to speak the truth in love.
There is no other more common use of communication between us and God, outside of the Bible, than through individual human beings. God and the person he uses speak jointly. It’s happened to me many times that I feel like God is speaking to me so that he can speak through me.
But you’ve also got to consider the source. This is often the most commonly used way to hear God’s voice but it’s also the most commonly misused and abused.
God speaks through people, but those people are as imperfect as we are. And if God is using you to speak to someone remember, that you are imperfect and you may not be hearing or communicating as well as you should.
I heard someone say that they had a friend who was uniquely used by God to speak words of life and correction into those around him. There were many times when God used that person profoundly in multiple people’s lives. He would, however, begin each conversation this way, “if God’s voice is a 10 and my voice is a zero then what I’m about to say is a 4 on the scale." If you are the source or someone else is the source here’s a good rule of thumb.
So here’s a good rule of thumb: Consider The Source.
Here are some helpful ground rules when we encounter the voice of God from and for people:
1. No one is above rebuke - give someone permission to speak into your life. Make sure it’s someone you trust. And when the person says something that you don’t want to hear, listen very carefully.
2. Don’t make decisions in a vacuum - the Bible tells us over and over again to seek wise counsel. Proverbs 20:18 Plans succeed through good counsel; don’t go to war without wise advice.
3. Listen long and hard before you dish out advice - make sure that you’re actually paying attention to what the other person is saying rather than getting ready to say something that you want to say.
4. Always encourage before you correct - that’s God’s pattern in the book of Revelation. He had Seven very difficult things to say to 7 different churches but he began each one with some positive feedback.
Rev 2:19 I have seen your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance. And I can see your constant improvement in all these things.
5. Tough conversations get tougher the longer you wait - you are not doing anybody favours by avoiding conflict. Conflict isn’t fun, but it helps us grow. Don’t say something just to get it off your chest. That’ll backfire. Genuine relationships are full of grace and truth.
I’d like to make 2 suggestions to you in order to help you figure out the desires God has for you and how to choose wisely in getting wisdom and allowing people to speak God’s words of life into you.
1. Remove the obstacles hindering you from knowing the desires of your heart.
a. Begin by praying for humility
b. remove the things getting in the way of your time with Jesus. Things like Netflix, social media, sex, porn, gossip and learn some self-control.
c. Cultivate the fruit of the spirit of self-control. Get into some routines, some Bible routines, some fitness routines, that will help you build some self-control
d. become more aware of your emotions and journal how you feel, how you reacted and why. When you get to the why you begin to understand your deepest desires and motivations.
2. God uses people to speak to you… So you may need to actually invest in a conversation with someone to do just that. As someone to be your mentor, spiritual parent or grandparent, build a relationship with them and figure out if you are comfortable sharing the desires that God has placed in you. And always test what they say to make sure that it it lines up with the Bible.
Source: Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God, by Mark Batterson 2017.
