Hearing from God

Is it possible to literally hear from God? Does God really speak through us? Will God really guide us through dreams or visions?

Growing up, no one ever really discussed the spiritual gifts in depth. Sure, I heard them mentioned, but never explored how we see them, how we recognize them in our life's, or how they are used. For so long, the God I knew seemed like a distant God, who I could send request to, only praying to have them answered. Never thinking He would speak to me, but seeing Him as just a recipient of my request. WOW!!! I was missing out on the incredibleness of God!! Yes, He speaks to us!!!!!! Literally!!!!! Yes, He speaks to us through dreams and visions!!!! Yes, He is the same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow! God is not a distant God, but an intimate, personal God, who desires to hold us in His arms. He desires us to pursue Him with all that we are, more than we pursue anything else in our live. If we are failing to pursue Him more than something else in our life, we will feel discontent. Why? Because we are not living in Him and who He created us to be! We fail to see the jealousy of God! He is jealous! Jealous to have His glory made known, jealous to have our whole being, jealous to have His creation make His name made known! And we should find this exciting, to have a God who desires us so much that He will step down into the mess we have made and try to pull us out. Ultimately He has given us free choice to choose what we want, but He will pursue, and He desires you to pursue Him! In the end the choice is ours. But my God is the God He says He is! He does speak to us! We can hear directly from God, God does speak through those around us, God does speak to us through dreams and visions, and God does care! He wants to hold us tight! He wants to bless us, but we must be ready for these blessings! We must understand where these blessing come from!

We constantly ask God to reveal Himself to us, to show us who He really is, but we must be ready to know the characteristics of God. Sometimes we are not ready. It may be that we are still holding onto something, He may not have our full devotion, or maybe we are not listening! Maybe we don't have the trust or faith that we really believe that God is still intimate and still there to hold us tight. God could not reveal His gift in me until I took the time to fully understand what that gift was and how to use it. And it wasn't until this past Friday, September 23, that God made known to me the full extent of what this spiritual gift looks like. Why did it take so long? Because I did not take the time to know what this gift was and how it is used. I never sought out to know my spiritual gift. But now, I'm so overcome with Joy, knowing what I know! Finally understanding what this gift is and how God can use it! It is a process. I had to learn boldness, courage, and develop such an intimate relationship with my Savior that He could speak to me! My desire is that each and every one of you may know God in such an intimate way, that we are so filled with Joy and Love that it may not be contained within us, but explode, infecting those around us! There is such freedom in having this relationship with God! May God grant you Wisdom in your journey as you pursue Him with every ounce of your being!

Pray!

There are so many things that God does that I don't understand! Things I feel called to, only to feel hurt and to seem as if I failed. In the past year I have felt this way so many times. It's hard when there seems to be an easy answer, only to have God call you do to do what is difficult. To love, knowing that this may not be returned. To give, expecting nothing in return. To care, when you know only words of anger will come back.

At what point do you let go, do you move on? At what point do you allow others to learn from consequences? After pouring into Jaluan for two years, he has returned only anger now. It can be hard to hear rebuke from someone who I Love and pray for every night. It can be hard to allow God to work and leave them to the consequences of their actions. At some point, all we can do is pray. All I can do is pray that God brings healing. We can only bring people so far and at some point, the decision has to be theirs. This is so hard, to know what Freedom is and to know what is needed, only to have to watch them suffer.

One thing I know for certain though, God is Great! He listens to prayer and He answers prayer! Sometimes we don't think our prayer is effective because it's not answered in the way we expect or in an obvious way, but we have no idea what our prayers do! No matter what hurt we experience, no matter how much sorrow we feel, no matter how much we don't understand what God ask of us, we can pray and we should pray! There is True power in prayer! Never underestimate God! Pray!