Voice of God

The voice of God is always an interesting topic to talk about with others. As I have been in this transition phase of life, the voice of God has been more intriguing to me than ever before. The main reason for this is because I want to know what the next step is in my life. I want to hear God's voice and know where I am being pointed. However, this has been a constant battle within in my head as I am trying to understand what God is saying to me or what his voice sounds like. It all hit me yesterday as I was sitting in church and listening to the pastor speak about the voice of God. We have it so misconstrued sometimes and we aren't really listening.

First of all, it is so easy to fall into the trap of spending too much time on how to hear God's voice instead of listening to God's voice. This is a device that the devil likes to use as God starts to speak to us. We think that God is being silent because we are searching for how to hear his voice, but the reality of the matter is that we need to just listen. None of us hear God in the same way and we don't even always hear God in the same way. God is speaking, it is just a matter of listening.

Aside from the problem of how to hear God's voice, we are trying to hard to interpret what he is saying instead of just following his directions. The truth is that sometimes we just don't want to hear what God is saying. We want to find another meaning in it or we want to go in another direction. The biggest reason behind this is because we are afraid of what might happen if we follow his direction. We don't want to be pushed out of our comfort zone because it might lead us down a road that we are not willing to take. This leads us to "not hearing" the voice of God. 

We tend to forget the fact that we already know the voice of God. It is the same voice that called us to follow him. It's the same voice that called us his children and offered a place in his home for us. It's a familiar voice that we all know but often forget when life gets crazy and hectic. The reality of the matter is that in order to hear the voice, we must be close enough to the person is speaking. In order to have a relationship in which the voice can be clearly heard, it is important to spend intimate time with the Lord. The reality of the matter is when life gets crazy and busy it is easy to put that relationship on the back burner. When this happens every other voice gets much louder and it is those voices that we hear.

God does not stop speaking contrary to popular belief. In order to actual hear him, we have to actually be listening. The truth of the matter is that when we are searching, it is easy to forget how to hear his voice. It is easy to do what we want instead of following his plan. It is easy to forget what his voice sounds like. It is knowing these things about ourselves and then changing them that will help us to hear God's voice. God is speaking, he wants us to hear him and it's our choice to do so.

A Continued Lesson

Over the last few weeks, I have started to understand my fears. I come off as a pretty confident person or so I like to believe. Nothing really scares me, I am willing to do anything, and to be honest I am ready to go anywhere and do anything. However, as these last few weeks have come straight at me, I realize that I am not that person. As I am in this phase of life, a college graduate working at Starbucks, I have felt my confidence starting to dwindle down.

I have a degree and for the past year, I have been working with that degree. However, the place that I have been put in has not allowed me to really see that. I feel like the fact that I work so much at Starbucks makes me feel like I have done nothing. I am constantly attacked with the thoughts of rejection as I am only a barista in Gas City, Indiana. The reality of the matter is that no matter how many times I hear the truth, the lies are so much louder. It's this fear of amounting to nothing that has got me stuck in a rut.

When in this position, I feel like the best decision to make is to run away. Not literally...my friends won't let me do that, but to retreat from the current setting that I am in. It is necessary to take a break from my (pointless) life and go to a place where I can clear my head. What better place to do this than Chicago, Illinois? I have spent the last couple of days with no agenda relaxing at my adopted parent's apartment in the city. It is through this break that I have had the chance to really hear out the truth that I need to hear. More so, hear out the truth that I have been speaking to people.

As graduates, we fall into this place where we don't feel accomplished if we are not where we always pictured ourselves to be. As Christian graduates, we continue to say that we will go wherever God wants us to, but deep down have a plan of our own. We have an idea of where we want to go and what we want to do and if that is not where we are, we have failed. We lose confidence that we will become anything because we our life is of no significance to us. We aren't changing the world and aren't accomplishing major goals. Our main purpose in life is to work, make money, pay bills, repeat. This isn't the ideal life that we painted for ourselves.

However, it is all based on perspective. My friend Sarah Tabb can assure you that I do love talking on the topic of perspective. From my perspective, I should be out there doing something crazy and living life in a big city or another country. I should be changing lives in crazy ways and having an incredible impact on those around me. My gifts should be put to use in a completely different setting than I have been cursed with for the past year. This life that I have lived was never on my radar nor did I ever wish for it to be my life.

However, this is merely my perspective on my life. When looking through the eyes of God and others who have surrounded me over this past year I have realized that I have been doing all of these things. Just because I have lived in Muncie, Indiana doesn't mean that I haven't led a crazy life. It doesn't mean that I haven't lived in a completely foreign environment. It doesn't mean that I haven't changed lives or had an impact on the community around me. The truth is that God has worked through me and has done crazy things in me and through me. He has challenged me in ways that I never could imagine happening in such a dull place as Muncie, Indiana.

What I am trying to get at is that what we are doing may not seem magical or the most important thing in the world, but maybe we are just looking at it the wrong way. When things get so normal and comfortable, we forget what we are doing. We forget what God is doing. The truth is that we need to step back and really see what God is doing. We need to step outside of ourselves and see things in a new light.