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.

Prayer

So something I have seen that a lot, if not all Christians struggle with, is prayer. How do I pray? When do I pray? What does praying even mean? Is there a wrong way to pray? All very good questions because prayer is a very personal thing for you and for God. Its not the same for any two people, so thus, we have a lot of differences in what prayer looks like and therefore now set of instructions that tell us EXACTLY how to pray. There is no list of things you have to cover or anything like that.

First off, I feel like the biggest question I hear is "How do I pray?" Or it could be phrased in the statement "I don't know how to pray." Well this is silly. Why is it silly? Well let's first look at what exactly is prayer? Prayer is simply our way of communicating with God. So many times, people look at prayer as our way to just talk AT God rather than to talk WITH God. What I mean is that simply, we talk, but rarely listen. I am sure that we all can relate to this. We pray to God and we tell him our joys and our struggles, we thank him for blessings and ask him for guidance and strength. However, once we say "Amen", that is often the end of it. Prayer is not just when we are talking. Prayer is a conversation, a dialogue, not a monologue. God is not the audience to his creation. He is the director. He is actually like a director AT a dress rehearsal of a play. He watches, but intervenes when necessary and talks to his actors and gives them new direction or tells them about how he likes what they already were doing. Not the best analogy, but I think it works for our understanding of who he is. The point is we can't just talk to him and ask him for things, yet not be listening to his response. Listening for God's response is just as much part of prayer as us talking to him. Prayer then can be just taking time to sit in quiet and just listen for his guidance and his assurance to direct you. Prayer can not be limited anymore to "speaking to God" because prayer ISN'T just when we speak. I can't stress this enough. This I feel is our biggest mistake in prayer as Christians. We complain that we don't feel God's guidance or that he is speaking or calling us, but are we actually even listening??

"Ok, Hunter, I get it! I need to listen. I will work on that, but when I speak to him, how do I do that?" Good question reader. How do you speak to someone you love, lets say your father or a close friend? I will give you a few moments to think about that question first......


OK, speak to God like that. God is your father and he is your close friend. He has your back and he wants to have an ACTUAL relationship with you where you are comfortable with him and you trust him. He doesn't want to be this unapproachable creator and ruler that we feel afraid to talk to. Be respectful, but be friendly and just TALK to him. It doesn't have to be laden with "thee", "thou", "thine/thy", and all of this wordy business that we are conditioned to think. Matthew 6:7 says "And when you pray, do not heap on empty words as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words." Don't be wordy, say what you mean and what you need to say and end it. God doesn't like when we talk in circles any more than other people do.

Well the next issue is when to pray. Always be in a state of prayer. As a Christian, it is important to always be in this "conversation" with our Father. When we are not directly talking to him, we should have an ear open to what he is saying to us and how and where he is guiding us. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says this: "Rejoice always, PRAY WITHOUT CEASING, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for all of you." Notice the capitalized letters. Pray without ceasing. Always be speaking or listening to God.

Why do we need to pray though? This is the easiest question of them all. We need to pray to build that relationship that I mentioned earlier. God wants a real relationship with us. Unlike the relationships or lack of, between people and the deities of other religions. God loves us and wants to be connected with us and have an actual working relationship with us. How many relationships with other people have you had that worked well without ever talking to each other at all. Romantic, friendship, or familial, none of them work without proper communication, both speaking and listening. Prayer is ESSENTIAL to building and maintaining our relationship with the creator of the universe.

Why would you NOT want to have a relationship with him? Talk to the guy for crying out loud!!! And listen to what he has to say in return, it is probably going to change your life.