Hearing God
It’s funny how the Holy Spirit speaks sometimes.
I find myself more and more, at the beginning of my day, asking for Him to speak to me and then at night when I lay my head down, I ask him to speak to me in dreams.
Be careful for what you ask for! He just might do it!!
I’ve had a few of those occasions in my life where He spoke to me in unexpected ways and it actually caught me by surprise, because in the moment, I wasn’t sure that it made sense.
What I’ve learned through the years, is to make note of it. Sometimes when Holy Spirit speaks, it’s for something in a future day or time. Or maybe it’s something that he desires that I press in to more in prayer for greater clarity and understanding.
Let me give you two scenarios.
Years ago, when I was on staff at another church, we had a man come and minister in our church and to our staff. He was gifted man in prophecy. Wisely, as he ministered to the staff, we had it recorded and later even received it written out. The prophecy was so “out there” that I laughed about it. I went home and shared it with my wife and even made the comment “that won’t ever happen here”, meaning the current church I was serving at. I couldn’t imagine in that moment leaving a church that I loved and a people I loved serving. But that statement I made would turn out to be a correct statement!
It didn’t happen there and it wasn’t for that time. Little did I know the changes that our church would go through and that God was going to bring that prophecy to fulfillment but it would be at Beltway Park!
The Lord reminded me of the prophecy when I moved to Abilene and came on staff. I dug through my office desk and found the tape and transcript and sure enough…. I was living the prophecy!! It took a little over 2 years for it to come to pass, but I can tell you, I have experienced the prophetic gift at work first hand!!
Here’s another way that God spoke unexpectedly to me. I received a call early on a Tuesday morning that the Pastor who was to lead staff prayer that day wasn’t going to be able to come in. So, I was on!
I had about 30 minutes before staff prayer. I wasn’t sure what was to be the prayer direction that day, so walking down the hallways of our church, I asked Holy Spirit what direction to go. It’s interesting, because I really could have just gone any direction. I keep lots of notes from devotionals I read, have multiple prayer guides on my phone, and let’s face it, I’m a Pastor, I should be ready to lead people in prayer at any time!
But I felt like I needed to ask Him for direction. Obviously, the sudden change didn’t catch Holy Spirit by surprise, so maybe there was something we needed to hear from Him that day.
I stepped into the baptism room and saw the green waders and immediately sensed that the Lord was saying, “it’s time to get wet and stop playing it safe”. Then the rest of the picture began to unfold. In the baptistry, or in fly fishing, etc. the waders are worn to keep from getting wet. However, you’re in the middle of the water, only dry. What I felt like the Lord was saying, is that often we play it safe by getting close to Holy Spirit, being around Him, but not being affected personally by Him. We needed to take the waders off and allow His Spirit to soak us.
We went into staff worship and prayer. After worship, I shared the picture of what I felt like Holy Spirit had given me. Immediately afterwards, I had several staff saying Holy Spirit had been speaking the same thing to them or had also given them pictures!!! One had felt the Holy Spirit shared with them on the way to work that they had been living life “safely”. Another one had a picture of the floor in our Chapel that had water on it. It was so real that they had actually touched it to see if it was wet!
So, my encouragement is this:
- Ask Him to speak to you through His Word, visions and dreams
- Take note of anything you sense, read or see that He might be speaking
- Take a chance…. share it with others!
This week let’s be intentional about looking, hearing and seeing the ways God might be speaking to us!
