He Knows How to Talk to Us
God talks to each of us differently, doesn’t He? He talks to us how He made us to hear, how He made us to think. We’re all reflections of Him, we all can think and hear differently and still all think like He thinks, we can all hear His voice, respond to His directions. And while I am so familiar with that whisper, that still small voice, that peace that passes understanding, that “click” in my soul--I have so many doubts and worries and wonderings when it comes to hearing His voice.
I think that if you were to sum up how my husband hears from the Lord, it would be along the lines of Joshua 1:3: “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you.” He’s like the Energizer Bunny that you just wind up and set it loose and see what path it takes. If you were to sum up how I hear from the Lord, it would be more Isaiah 30:21: “You will hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.” So the vulnerability to my main method of hearing from the Lord is that if I don’t hear a “word” in my heart, I start to panic like oh no, did I not hear You, Lord? Is that not You? Am I going the wrong way? What should I do? Which way should I go?
Most likely the truth is that for each of us it is a mix of those two bookend verses. There are times when we get to clearly hear and see the Lord’s directions and footsteps ahead of us, feel His hand guiding us from behind. There are other times when we just have to go, believing the Lord is making a way where we don’t see it, that He is giving us the very feet beneath our right-now-happening-live steps.
But for all of us, I think there is an underlying worry that we will somehow miss the Lord’s direction, miss His plans, miss His steps for us. Cuz HE knows the plans He has for us, but that doesn’t always mean I’m gonna get ‘em right off. I mean, Abram overshot his promised land the first time round and the Lord brought him back. That’s encouraging that the Lord was able to bring him back, but I’d prefer not to miss it in the first place, eh? Anybody else with me?
I remember my dad saying one time, “The Lord knows how to talk to us. He made us. He’s really good at what He does.” The implication being, I don’t necessarily have to be perfect at hearing and listening for the Lord to be able to get through to me. The general leaning-in of my heart, the continued looking for Him and His voice and His ways means that, He WILL be able to get through. If He needs to use a talking donkey or a continually-burning-but-non-incinerated bush, so be it! He’s pretty good at His job, so I can take some of the pressure off myself.
Even if I DO hear Him, I tend to doubt that it WAS Him (He’s got His work cut out for Him with me, I’ll tell ya!). I’m so worried that I’ll hear my OWN hopes and wants and mistake them for the Lord, or that I’ll get it “wrong” (as if I could get them all right, but that is another blog for another time), or I’m afraid or I don’t want to… A little confirmation goes a long way, right? Lord, if You could just confirm what I think You’ve maybe said… Or confirm that You didn’t say it…
Like Gideon. He wasn’t always the man of valor who rode the 300 soldiers to victory against armies more than triple their size (Judges 7:22). He wasn’t always the man of confidence who when a nation refused to let them ride through their country, said that’s fine but when we’re done with THIS enemy we’ll be back for YOU. Me and my 300 new BFF’s against your whole nation’s army. Cuz we have God and you don’t, so I’d be bleaching the curtains to make a white flag before we get back, tiger (Judges 8:9). Gideon wasn’t always able to stand so confidently in the face of opposition and question and doubt.
When the Lord first came to him and called him man of valor, he scoffed at himself. He accused God of having abandoned them, left them without fulfilling any of His promises. “If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about?” (Judges 6:13). Never mind that God was standing in front of him ready to fulfill promises, but Gid had something to get off his chest. Side note: God’s pretty Ok with us getting things off our chest. Even when it comes to Him. He can take it. Cast your burdens--all of them, all your doubts even the ones about God--slam those suckers on the counter of God and say “what can I get for THESE? What’s your exchange rate?”
God tells Gideon the plan. Which, of course, though he himself has surely prayed and cried out to God for years and years, he doubts. He can’t imagine this being the case. He can’t imagine anything different than what has been every. Single. Other. Time. God lays out the beginnings of the plan, and Gideon is like I see Your plan, but don’t mind if I just poke holes in every facet of it, because WHAT??? What are you thinking? How in the world is THIS Your plan? I’m gonna need some confirmation before I even consider considering this.
“If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who talk with me” (Judges 6:17).
I’ve felt that. Like God, I don’t know if that was you or me or the pizza I had for lunch coming back to chat with me, but dude I’m gonna need something more. Because I knew You were all kinds of crazy, cuz I’ve been following You for a while, but this is on another level. Like no way can I take even a possible step in this direction without KNOWING that this is you.
Todd and I had four kids like we had planned we would have. But even immediately after my 4th was born--I mean we’re still IN THE HOSPITAL--I had the feeling someone was missing. But then again, I’m a little bit of a crazy baby lady, which I full well acknowledge, so I didn’t want to assume that this was anything other than me starting the grieving process of being done having babies. But dude, the feeling just stayed. And stayed. And stayed. I tried giving it up to the Lord, letting it go, letting it just sit there and coexist with me. I didn’t do anything to encourage it, I assumed it was just my little heart.
There came a day when Todd felt prompted for us to answer the question one way or the other, so we fasted and prayed. Oh MAN can it feel like pressure when you have a VERY specific question that you want the Lord to answer and waiting for a “yes” or a “no,” which is not often how the Lord talks--it’s just nerve-wracking! Toward the middle of the day, I felt like perhaps the Lord was giving me a little green light to welcome one more to our family. But then I was just SURE I was just hearing out of the desires of my own heart. And I remember praying to the Lord, “Can you PLEASE give me confirmation? Can I please just be Gideon and can you give it to me twice over? I just, I can’t move a muscle for fear I am walking in my own desires. I need to KNOW--is this You talking to me?”
At the end of the day, Todd and I shared what we had felt and heard and seen. And through a series of MULTIPLE confirmations, we realized we think the Lord is encouraging us forward. They were funny little confirmations that you could read as just coincidence, except for the sheer number of them. More than twice, and more than just me and my heart, but to both of our hearts. And we did indeed welcome baby #5, our little caboose baby. And at THAT point, I knew the Lord (and my body and my husband hahahahaha) were all saying, that’s it. Being the crazy baby lady that I am, I of course have had to grieve that and begin working on my own children to brainwash them into giving me all the grandbabies I could ever want… ;) But I knew that I knew the Lord’s directions for our family unit had been fulfilled.
More recently, we happened to be visiting a friend’s church one Sunday morning when we both realized quite suddenly that the Lord was instructing us to start attending that church. It was the kind of potent, powerful, unmistakable moment that you kind of wish ALL interactions with the Lord were. And yet, even with it being SO CLEAR, I was like Lord, I’m gonna need that confirmation You’re so famous for. Because my heart LONGS to go this direction, but there’s so much potential confusion and hurt for my kids that I need to KNOW that it’s You talking to me before I talk to them. I need to be confident in Your leading so I can confidently lead them.
I didn’t know if I would get confirmation or whether I would be taking my best faith-based guess--cuz that’s also often the case! But in His kindness and overflowing humor, He confirmed it for me at LEAST two times between noon and 8am the next morning. And has continued to confirm it (even though there’s no question anymore) for months after. My cup overflows with confirmation. Which is funny, to say the least, but it’s also a reminder every time that He makes His footsteps my pathway. He is the word behind me saying this is the way. He made the way and He’ll lead me in the way everlasting. I need not doubt Him nor His ability to get to me. He IS really good at what He does. He DOES really know how to talk to humans--even this worrying wondering doubting human residing in my body.
I’m so grateful for His confirmation. I’m grateful He knows how to talk to me in just the way He made me, giving me all the confidence and peace I need while still leaving me room to exercise my ever-developing faith. I’m ever so grateful for these current waves of confirmation washing over me like reminders of what He has done, what He has said, and who He is. I want to always remember this is who He is.
Of course we don’t always get such generous confirmation. Sometimes we just get to walk and believe that He is giving us the ground beneath our feet, or smoothing the way ahead of us, or holding our hand in the valley… But sufficed to say, it’s OK to be Gideon. It’s ok to ask the Lord--and even ask Him more than once--can You please confirm? Can Your show Yourself? I just need to know that it’s You who talks to me. More than ANYTHING, He wants to talk to us. He wants to walk with us. He wants to show us the next thing He has planned for us, the next place He has for the soles of our feet to tread, the next moment of valor He means to walk us into… He WANTS us to know that it IS Him who talks to us.
