Mona Burton

Pride can corrupt our hearing from God when our motive in announcing that we have heard from Him is to impressed others. We can protect ourselves from being deceived by our pride by never claiming God's guidance unless it is clear, by never saying "God said" unless He has, and by being humble when we share with others how He is guiding us.

The willingness to obey without understanding the reasons for God's commands is so important because God sees and knows what we cannot see and do not know. In Jeremiah 29:11 God says, "I know the thoughts that I think towards you, ..." He knows His plans for our lives, we do not. If we obey His commands our relationship with Him grows stronger and deeper and as that happens we will discover that there are times when He will show us what it is He has planned for us. Obedience sometimes help us understand God's workings because when we obey we may be able to see the "pieces fitting together." Obedience brings us into a right standing with God and when we are in right standing with God He may reveal to us His plans for us.

A desire for a relationship with God is more important than seeking God's voice because if one has a relationship with Him then it follows that he/she will hear His voice. Jesus spent time in prayer, talking to His Father, building that relationship with God, and He heard from Him all the time. Hearing God's voice contributes to our relationship with Him. Hearing His voice increases our trust and builds our faith in Him. We are commanded to "press in" to know the Lord because if we do then "He will come to us as the showers ..." His word says if we seek Him we will find Him. Because of Paul's passion for a relationship with God he kept in constant communication with Him and so was able not only to hear Him but he obeyed His every command regardless of the outcome or consequence to himself. That inspires me. I want to have that same passion so that I will obey in spite of, regardless of, despite what may happen, I want to be obedient and leave the rest to Him.

Eli's counsel to Samuel, when he recognized that God was calling the boy was, "Go and lie down, and if He calls you, say, 'speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.' " This was very good counsel. The significance of Samuel recognizing that he is a servant means that he responds to the LORD in humility and submission, recognizing that the LORD, He is God and that he, Samuel, is no better than a slave before his master, and so is ready and willing to be obedient to His every command.

God sometimes does not talk to us because He is not always talking. And no, it is not always because we are not receptive. It is just that He is not talking at the moment. So when we do not hear anything from God, we are to continue doing what we were doing (in His secret place), and patiently wait on Him for further directions.

When one has received an insight from God about a person's spiritual state, one should ask God how to pray for that person. I have had a nudge from God about a particular woman, but as to her receiving help, I do not know. What I do know is that if God reveals something that needs fixing it is because He wants to fix it. We have deliverance service every Wednesday. After the Word has been preached there is usually an altar call when people would come up for prayers. This particular Wednesday after the Word, all the pastors were instructed to pray for the people at the altar. This woman that I did not know came before me and as I laid my hands on her the thought "hurting heart" came to me. I placed my right hand over her heart and prayed that God would take away the pain. As I said I did not know her and I still do not know her to this day. A couple of days later a friend of mine who goes to another church called and while we were talking she mentioned that one of the sisters from her church told her that she had visited our deliverance service that week and what had happened. It turned out that it was the same person I had prayed for. My friend went on to tell me that that sister had lost her twelve years old son by drowning just one month before, hence the pain in her heart. I learned that God really does care about and for us very much and that He is truly "touched by the very feelings of our infirmities, and so works through His servants to minister to those infirmities.

The similarity between God's brief, inarticulate nudges or promptings and David's use of the Urim and Thummim to receive direction is that they are both brief, inarticulate directions from God. When David needs more than a "yes" or "no" answer, God either speaks to him directly or through someone else.

Promptings from the Holy Spirit are clear enough when we are seeking God for direction. He is not the kind of God who would leave us to 'flounder like a fish out of the water'. "No" is just as important an answer as "yes" because either way, it is still His direction and we need to pay keen attention and understand that He at all times know what is best and what He wants of us. I have felt God's promptings to take certain actions and procrastinated for many days. I discovered that when I did not obey immediately there would be turmoil in my spirit and a lack of that inner joy and peace. When I do follow His promptings, even when I don't understand why He is leading me in in that particular direction, I am filled with a sense of calm and my peace and joy return.

It was important for Simon to get a very clear command from the Spirit to go with his visitors, otherwise he would not have gone with them because back then it was a case of the "Jews don't mix with the Samaritans". Hadn't the word been so clear, Peter would not have gone with his visitors. The Jews literally would have nothing to do with the Gentiles. they were considered "unclean", and "not a people". God first had to prepare him by giving him that vision. When he was criticized for taking this action, Simon recounted for his colleagues the vision he had seen and what the Holy Spirit had said to him and everything that took place at Cornelius' house. How the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles also. It takes grounded faith to obey the Holy Spirit and take an action you know you will be criticized for later. I have done that before and I have since come to realize that it is nothing more than pride that caused me to disobey. I feared that I would be criticized for being obedient.

If Paul hadn't been sure of his instructions from the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, he might have allowed himself to be persuaded by his friends to abort that particular trip. If, like his friends, I was processing the prophecy from Agabus through the ears of the flesh, I would have tried to dissuade him also. It takes the level of maturity that Paul obviously had, not only to receive a direction that might lead us into hardship and danger, but to obey that direction as well. When God leads us on a difficult path and we choose the easy way, it puts a spoke in the wheel of our relationship with Him; it causes delay in our spiritual development; and we might not be able to move on from there until we allow God to have His way. If that path is leading us to be of service to someone else, then God might very well bypass us and use somebody else to accomplish His purpose.

I think Paul felt relief, reassured, his trust in God restored to its peak, and his confidence in who he was and whose he was resurfaced. All his fears ebbed away and his hurts became bearable. That God spoke to Paul in this way teaches us that God is not only concerned about our souls' salvation, but that He is also concerned about our entire being. He is concerned about the tiniest issue that we face. He knows when one hair falls from our head. We learn from this that God is very loving and gently cares for us in every situation.

Too many times we expect God to show up for us in supernaturally phenomenal ways by giving us signs, or He will have somebody say "thus saith the Lord", and so do not recognize the very simple. So I think the author uses the contrasts to bring to our attention that more often than not God speaks to us in a "still small voice." God's voice comfort and renew Elijah by giving him a new assignment, such an assignment that lets him know that God still loves him in-spite of his fears. It is so, so easy to miss God when His voice is gentle and quiet because, we either do not recognize His voice, or think it is just "a thought", or we just cannot distinguish His from the many other voices clamouring to be heard.

The Holy Spirit makes "the mind of Christ" available to through words, through promptings or nudges, and through glimpses, which help to guide us in the way we should go. It is like walking in the dark with just a candle for light. You can only see far enough ahead just to take one step at a time. This makes me totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit, for it is only He who can intercede on my behalf and in turn relate to me what the Father wants of me. I think how this relates to listening for God's voice, is that if I am dependent on the Holy Spirit then I will wait on Him for guidance and instructions which come from the Father, for He, the Holy Spirit, will only say what He hears the Father say.

In John 14 - 16, Jesus promises that the Holy Ghost (another Comforter) will be given, not only to be with the believer forever, but to be in him; He shall teach the believer all things; He shall remind him of all the things that he heard from the Master; He will testify of Jesus; He will reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement; as the Spirit of truth, He will guide the believer into all truth; He will only speak what He hears; He will show things to come; He will glorify Jesus, for He shall take what is Jesus' and reveal it to the believer. When it comes to guidance, because He, the Holy Spirit, is in the believer, that believer is assured of his every step being guided into all truth, hearing only what He hears and being informed of what is to come. He is our Counselor, our Helper and our Guide. As to hearing God, The Holy Ghost will only tell the believer what He hears from God.

Jesus said, "By Myself I can do nothing," because He is not and was never independent of the Godhead. They all work together interdependently. Even though Jesus is the Son of God, divine in nature, and equal with God in Person, He is subordinate to God in role. We can use Jesus' example as a pattern for our own life and ministry by humbly depending on and taking directions from our Father. I think Jesus would "see" and "hear" the Father by seeking Him through constant communication with Him, especially in His quiet time.