It's been ages since I've written a blog. (Okay, okay, so it's been a month and a half). I've been busy, and writing and maintaining this blog has fallen on my priority list, unfortunately. I still have thoughts, but I always feel like I don't have the time to express them. I fear that I am too easily swept up in the meaningless and the mundane. I seek purpose in things that can't give me purpose. I ignore chances for excitement or even productivity for the dull and repetitive.
I have fallen behind in my 12 in 12 project, unfortunately. I will finish at least 12 books this year, but it won't be monthly, anymore. I feel like I've got more reading than I can keep up with because of school. Right now I'm about 2/3 done with The Holiness of God by RC Sproul, and I'm slowly working through it. On to some other thoughts.
In one of my homework assignments, a question was posed: How do I approach God in prayer? I found that to be really strange, because, I tend to approach him in petition and/or thanks. The follow up question really challenged the way I think, though: "Do you pray to God knowing that he, too, has a will?" My response, immediately was, "Of course! Why wouldn't I pray as though God has a will?"
“How do I train myself to hear God's voice in my life?”
The more I thought about it, the more that I realized that, no, I often don't pray as though God has a will. Usually, I pray with my mind predetermined, and I am only open to his confirmation. Praying and being open to God's will is a strange concept to wrap my mind around. When I talk to a friend, I'm aware that they have a will, because they respond and act in ways that may contradict with the way that I desire they act. But when I'm praying to God, he doesn't necessarily respond right away, audibly, or forcefully. Sometimes he speaks to me through intuitions and ideas, and sometimes he speaks through others. How do I train myself to hear God's voice in my life?
I think about the response of young Samuel in 1 Samuel 3. God was speaking audibly to him, but he mistook the voice for his mentor's. Had Eli not been there, what would Samuel have done? Would he have recognized God's voice? I don't know, but I do know that it took Eli's wisdom and advice before Samuel appropriately responded to God's call.
It's weird for me to think about something that seems so personal and private as prayer and recognize a need for guidance and direction. Isn't prayer something that's between us and God? Jesus died so that we wouldn't need an intercessor. Yet, Jesus taught his disciples to pray, and he taught them at their own insistence. They wanted to learn how to pray, and they sought the godliest person they knew and asked him to teach them. (I wonder how much they tripped out when they later began realizing that they had asked God himself to teach them to pray to God.) It makes me wonder why I haven't done the same.
What about you?
Who do you have in your life that can direct you in hearing and responding to God's call?
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