God Does Speak

Job 33:14
For God does speak-----now one way, now another---though man may not perceive it.

The thought behind this verse is the most liberating thought to me when it comes to relationship.
The very idea that God does speak and speak to me personally, well that's a keeper.
I think the church has done little if anything in teaching believer's to hear God.
I was very blessed to be a part of a church who held an 8 week teaching on Hearing God. It was not the definitive (Ours is the only way) teaching, but it aided us and gave us a basis from which to hear God for ourselves.

I don't remember who said it but I have never forgotten the following: "God isn't speaking half as much as people say He is, and people aren't listening for God half as much as they should be."

I taught a "hearing" God class today at Rapha.
It has been a while since I have done this and did so today only because one of the men came to my office asking "how do I hear God?"
The exercise we do at the end of the class where I get everyone to hear God has never failed. I mean in the 11 years I have been here at Rapha, I have never done this exercise and it not produce results that let you know God does speak.

I spend time in prayer before the class asking God to give me a person in the class who will be the focal point of our hearing. When I hear God say who it will be, I write the person's name down on a sheet of paper and file it away.
After our teaching time, we move into a clinic or "how to" time of ministry.
I invite people to the front one by one and ask them a question that involves a one word answer.
I will ask God to speak to the person and put a name in their mind. Usually there is some hesitation after I pray and I quickly tell the individual who is trying to hear not to wrestle with what they are hearing. Then I ask what name they heard and they tell me.
We go through a series of 5/6 questions and I write down the answers.
Once finished, I turn to the person that God said was our focal point and I began to question him about the answers on the board. Today the name that was heard was "JAMES". It turns out that the person who was focal had a man named James who was very prominent in helping him to get into Rapha.

One of the questions involved numbers: The number that was heard was 11.
At first the person who was to be the focal point of our hearing didn't have anything concerning the number 11. After a while his eyes grew large and he said, "Yes I do. Eleven is the number of people who lived in his house when his day remarried and life turned tragic and terrible.

One of the questions involved God showing a picture in the mind of the person who was trying to hear. They saw a classroom and began to describe it. In the end it was a 9th grade class room.
The person who was the focal point said that all his troubles began in the 9th grade.
At the end of the exercise I explained that I had been in prayer that God would give me the name of one of the men at Rapha that God would speak about and reveal himself. I held up the piece of paper with the mans' name on it and you could hear a collective gasp as the men realized that this wasn't a trick but God had indeed spoken in their midst.

They went away to talk and discuss what they had just experienced.
God became more than words on a page. He was real.
Isn't that the way it is suppose to work?
I think so.

God on you....

mb