Hearing Problems?

Before I start this post, I want to remind everyone, that in no way are my posts necessarily the official stance of any branch of the church or any denomination or anything like that. They are merely my understanding of God based on experience, scripture, and other theologians.

So this is kind of a continuation of the post about prayer. This is more directed towards the hearing from God aspect of prayer. I am not going to take the usual approach of looking at ways in which we DO hear from God, but instead look at ways in which we hinder ourselves from hearing God speaking to us. Some of these are things that we don't realize are hindering us, but some are things we do because we want to be secure in ourselves and not have to be completely dependent on our Father in Heaven.

First of all, is when we don't take time to stop and listen. This is so obvious, yet we often don't think about this. How are we going to be able to hear from God if we are not stopping to listen for his response and guidance for us? That's like asking a question to an academic adviser, then getting up and walking out of the room before they tell you what classes they feel you should take next semester. Don't ask God to guide you to your perfect spouse, to help you make a financial decision, or to help you pick a college, then not listen for his response. We tend to fill our lives and our schedules to the brim that we have no time for our relationship with God. Make some time in your daily schedule to both pray to God, but to also listen back.

People often find the issue that when things are going well for them, and even sometimes when things are just alright, we have the tendency to think we are not in need of anything anymore. "We have everything we need." This is not true at all and will not be until we are in Heaven. We always need God and we always need him to continue providing us with his grace and his blessings. We need to fight against this mindset and always remember our need for him.

Along with the taking time in our schedule to listen to God, we need to take time to rest. I know more than enough people who are burnt out and just physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. We live in a time and society where we feel like we always need to be on-the-go and doing something. What about taking care of ourselves though? Sure, exercise is good and you should do that, but maybe some days of the week, use your exercise time to take a nap. Or go to bed early instead of staying up to watch the ball game. Trust me, that's a hard one for me. Rest is important and vital. Even God rested. Maybe he didn't need to, but in doing so, he showed us that WE need to. If we aren't rested, we can't be the creature God created us to be and can't worship him as he intended.

I am sure that we all can relate to the feeling of wanting God to fit how we need him or want him to be. We want God to fit OUR lives rather than fit our lives to what God has for us. Doing this is essentially telling God that we know better than he does what is best for us. Does that even sound remotely like a good idea to be living your life in that way? Didn't think so. I know we feel like we know ourselves well enough to know what's best for us, but I promise you, God knows you infinitely more intimately better than you will ever understand yourself. Trust him with your life, rather than making him fit your expectations and desires. In this mindset, even if we do somehow let God speak to us, it could upset us and what we ourselves are trying to gain in this world.

The next thing is to be "religious." What I mean by this is like the Pharisees. Religion in this sense is being overly committed to the law and having the mindset and tunnel vision to think that you can find all the answers. We have to realize that we are saved by God through Christ, not the laws and scriptures. We are told about this salvation and father through the scriptures and guidelines, but they themselves are not the source of salvation or grace. When we find ourselves putting our faith in the Bible itself or the laws, or theologies, or philosophies of Christianity rather than Christ, we are missing the point and will never correctly hear or interpret God's guidance or voice.

Spiritual warfare is real and we have to acknowledge it. If we ignore it, it could be fatal. We are told in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 12-13, that we are not fighting wars against flesh or other people, but rather a more vital war against spiritual evil and darkness. We are to suit up with the armor of God and go to battle with that, rather than wage war on Earth with each other. By focusing on our Earthly battles, we are not keeping ourselves open to God's command as our spiritual general.

Lastly, and this may sound silly to you, but we can not tolerate sin in our lives that we have yet to confess or are unwilling to confess. As Christians, I feel we often think that since we believe in Christ and the grace we are given through him is enough and the rest will take care of itself. However, being a Christian is a whole new lifestyle and it is something we must work at and build upon for our whole existence here on Earth. Psalms 66:18 tells us that if we keep sin in our hearts without confession, God will not hear us. Hebrews 10:22 tells us we are to draw near to the Lord with clean and pure hearts free from an evil conscience. How to get rid of that evil in our conscience is to confess.

These were in no particular order, but just different ways that we are hindered from being close to God and hearing him speak to us. I hope and pray that God has made his way into your heart in reading this.

Be Joyous

So this is kind of a continuation of the last post. I have really seen what I wrote about before become more and more true in my life. The more I fight back against the crap that Satan and the world are throwing at me, the more I feel the pain and the more of a struggle it is. Not giving up though and here is why. There is a verse that comes to mind immediately off the top of my head in James, actually right at the beginning of the book directly after his greeting to his audience, which is the twelve tribes...

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4

Wow. What is God saying to us here through James? Well, he is saying that first of all, we are going to face trials. It is unavoidable and just part of life. It is going to happen and we should not fool ourselves otherwise. Get ready. Secondly, this is saying that we aren't supposed to just be like "well, this sucks, but I guess it is for the best. Blah." Pause. I have been doing this as of late. I know God has a plan, I do and I trust in it. However, I am honestly tired of facing trials and temptations and depressing circumstances. OK play. What this is actually telling us is that we are actually supposed to be JOYOUS about facing trials and hardships and things that are not fun. Wait what? Really? That can't be right.....but it is. Again though, don't stop reading there. WHY are we supposed to be joyous? We are not called to just be happy that things are hard. That doesn't make sense, but when you read it all, it does. We are called to find it all joy, because through those trials and hard times, we are going to be made complete and whole and perfect (oh hey sanctification, I didn't realize that was you again.) This is God's grace through sanctification AGAIN. Good news for us all.

So the verse is saying, "Hey, things are going to be hard, often. However, its ok, its actually good, because I, God, the King of all things, am going to make you perfect and holy and lacking nothing in the process. Cheer up and check out how cool I am."

Here is some more scripture to ponder...and we will stay in James. He seems to have a good idea about this temptation/struggle/trial stuff.

"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it has fully grown brings forth death." James 1:12-15

Ok, so pretty much we already established this stuff, but it is good to see it in scripture and verified so we know its not just something that we concocted in our minds. So when we face trials, we are blessed when we remain steadfast and still keep our eyes to the heavens rather than shifting our focus to worldly things aka IDOLS. Also, NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE has ever been tempted by God. That is Satan's claim to fame. He uses worldly things, or evil things, or even seemingly good things, to tempt us away from the blessings of God. These things become desires of ours or are even previously good desires that we had, that have been corrupted by sin. Now I will bring it back....RELATIONSHIPS. Boom, I said it. This is obviously what is going on with me and I know for a fact that it is something that at least 74.79% of you all struggle with as well.

Relationships are a good thing. They are. God made us to be in relationship both with him AND with each other (Gen. 2). However, Satan uses that desire for companionship and to be with someone to corrupt our minds and take our focus away from the relationship with God. Now its not good. Because now we are worshiping relationships with people instead of God and that is not good at all. Thats what we do though. Not intentionally, but we do it. And thats what sucks about that jerk Satan, he is sneaky and doesn't let us realize what he has done until we are already idolizing something else.

Don't confuse what I am saying here. Remember, relationships = good. Relationship being too important = bad. Keep that in mind. And thats true with EVERYTHING. Not just relationships. Food, tv, video games, friends, fixing up a car, working, following sports, playing sports, blogging, facebooking, tweeting, etc etc etc. You get the point.

It kind of feels like I have strayed away from the original point, but I promise I am still here. The point to be made here is that we have to make sure that our priorities have not been shifted away from our Father. It is when we put something else above him, that we get burned and face trials and etc. I put a girl too high on my priorities. Maybe not ahead of God, but maybe I did. I dont really know for sure. I still feel like I kept God at the top, but I know I put a lot of importance on her and I in my emotions and too much of my heart into it for the stage that we were at. Lesson learned though, but maybe that is just how I am. I am an emotional guy who puts my heart into things. It is something that we have to be careful about in life. Be wary about what you are investing your heart into and how much of your heart you are investing into things. ALWAYS BE SURE GOD IS GETTING THE TOP SPOT. It is when we lose sight of that is when Satan gets a foothold and is able to come in and mess with us. (See, told you I was still on track)

God bless you all and thank you for reading. I am open to suggestions from you all too at any point about things you would like to read about or just get my thoughts on. With those, it might take me a little longer to get a post together because I will want to research and pray about it first, but I would be happy to have suggestions from you guys. Again, thanks for reading, I love you all, and will be praying for my readers that they hear God through me, not just me talking about God.