Sometimes I ask God about something and an answer pops into my head. And sometimes I say it feels kind of like God told it to me.
And then when I think about it it seems much more likely that this answer was a product of my creativity and influences from church and reading the Bible and godly friends telling me what God is like for my whole life.
And at first I would get discouraged at this because God wasn’t really speaking directly to me like I thought maybe He was. And this would bring my whole faith into question because if I were making this up, what else might I have been making up.
But then I realize that God’s communication is so much deeper to me than just words. He is the one that moves my heart with moments of beauty, and inspiration, and maybe even the proper type of fear. He is the one who scolds me for dumb things I do with natural consequences because that’s just how He set up the world to work. He’s the one that has made the laws of nature and the dark and quiet whispers of my heart. And he has spoken for generations to those who grew the church, and are growing the church. Those who disciple and influence me. My pastors.
And I reconsider my conclusion. Maybe God is speaking to me through my creativity. And my godly peers. And the Bible. And church. And the natural conditioning of my surroundings which reward positive behavior and discourages bad. Maybe that is the way He prefers to speak to me because it involves visceral moments that teach my habits, and my instincts, and my evolution, and in fact the whole growth of our culture and our species, which is so much deeper than a few words in our modern language.
Although, sometimes it all filters down into exactly that. A few words spoken into the quiet chamber of my heart when I need it most. By all of the influences God has deposited in this world for my life since the dawning of humanity.
And you know? I’ve heard a lot of stories about people hearing words from God that would be really hard to explain away with creativity and influences. I bet sometimes, a few times in each of our lives, God really does wait until our hearts are quiet enough to hear it, and gives us original words directly from His heart to ours.
Raw Spoon, 8-11-17
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