Fountains of Life

Being Open to God

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By Cyndiopen to God

Do we have God in a box? Are there certain ways we expect God to move? Do we put limits on how, what, and when God can do something?

When Jesus healed people, He sometimes touched them, spoke words to them; other times He required that they wash themselves. He used a variety of different means and methods to heal. There was never a formula.

Same thing with God in the Old Testament. There were a multitude of ways God communicated with His people and even different ways He devised plans for the Israelites to come into the Promised Land. His manner of doing things may change, however, His character never did and never will.

So whether we’re looking to God for healing or anything else, if we desire to be open to Him, we have to trust in His character — His nature — not the means by which He may make it come to pass. Personally, I think God at times intentionally does things “out of the box” with unconventional means simply to reveal our trust, or lack thereof, in Him.

God is a loving, trustworthy God — that is His character. However, because many of us have experienced untrustworthy parents and/or authorities, we tend to have trust issues with God (as well as others). This is a normal transference.

It’s hard to have open-hearted relationships when there are trust issues, and usually these need to be worked out through counseling or prayer ministry. And when there is a lack of trust, we are inclined to have trouble being out of control. Control issues are exemplified in things such as:  we always want to do the driving, we want to have events at our house not someone else’s, we want to know what’s going to happen before arriving at an event, and so on.

So a part of being open to God requires us to release control to Him. We have to let go. We have to trust. And when we do — it’s truly amazing to see what God does. Many times it will be out of the box and totally unexpected, but knowing the character of God, we know it will always be good.

 

Hearing God at the Next Level

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It’s possible to hear God when discerning the steps of resolving issues you face.

And there’s a huge benefit — you live as an overcomer!

Next Level

Next-Level-Up

Last week I wrote about how to hear God’s voice as we journal. Having this daily practice helps us live in a peacethat supersedes any situation we are facing. It enables us to face life from a place of rest and to be encouraged in faith and hope.

However, there’s a next level to hearing God:

  • You can journal to hear God’s voice for the steps of issue resolution.

The Problem of the Judgment Wall

The majority of unresolved issues in our life is due to judgments. I so often find Christians stuck, instead of overcoming. Most of the time they don’t even realize they are living behind “the judgment wall.” What do I mean by “the judgment wall?”

Here’s an example: You feel threatened emotionally. Maybe your spouse rejects you or a coworker is crossing your boundaries, and you’re afraid of the confrontation you need to have with them. So instead of taking action, you put up a wall around your heart.

Wall Definition

So what do we mean when we say we have “a wall” around our hearts? What does that look like?

A wall around our hearts is typically a defense mechanism:

  • Judgements we are making.

  • Ways we find faults with others.

  • Operating in blame rather than personal responsibility for our feelings.

  • Fight or Flight – demeaning, sarcastic remarks or the silent treatment.

All of these behaviors indicate a wall is up.

The key is, first of all, to not feel condemned if we notice this. We all feel vulnerable at times and put a wall up. It’s like the verse that says to “be angry and sin not.” (Eph. 4:26)  In other words, it’s not that important that we find this response in our hearts, but what do we do with it? If we are secure in the Father’s love, it will be much easier to pray through what’s happening in our hearts rather than to judge ourselves.

Praying Through

The next level of hearing God is beyond just getting direction, comfort or encouragement; it’s praying through these heart issues. So now we are not simply journaling the words of love we hear Him say to us, but we are asking Him to help us sort through our hearts. (Ps. 139:23)

God, why am I putting up these wall?

What am I afraid of? What don’t I want to face?

Three Keys for Success in Hearing God’s Voice

  • Seek to stay objective, open to considering God’s view, the other person’s view, and scenarios we may not have considered.

  • Look for the underlying issue in our hearts and don’t try to simply force ourselves into good behavior.

  • Try to arrive at seeing things through God’s eyes, the eyes of love. Seek to walk in empathy toward ourselves and toward the other person.

Go ahead, give it a try. Got any issues that need to be resolved? Most of us do.

God desires for you to be an overcomer — for you to be able to hear His voice not only for guidance and daily orders, but also for dealing with those difficult patterns and conflicts in your life. He has all the solutions.

And if you get stuck in any of these steps, please let us know. We would be happy to give you some support.

How to Hear God’s Voice in 3 Easy Steps

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We live in an very insecure world but we have a God who is our foundational rock.

Hearing God’s voice is key to:believe

  • Knowing deeply His peace that passes understanding even in the midst of a storm.

  • Finding God’s solution of love for us and others in every situation we face that always makes everything okay.

  • Living in the rest God calls us to in Hebrews 3 and 4.

Steps to Hearing God

  1. Quiet yourself and know that He is God. Find a time and place where you can be still, away from the noise of your day. Fix the eyes of your heart upon Him and wait on Him. Ps.46:10

  2. Let the river flow. Be sensitive to the flow of God’s Spirit in you. Watchman Nee in The Spiritual Man, says we hear the Spirit through conscience, intuition, and worship. Intuition is a sudden “knowing” without having reasoned a thing out. Jn.7:38

  3. Write down what God reveals to you. Most Christians have had the experience of beginning to journal out what God is speaking to them, to soon find more and more of His words flowing as they kept writing. Hab.2:2, 3

 

Dealing with Hindrances

Don’t look for perfection or demand perfect accuracy (especially with proper grammar or punctuation). Trust your intuition — yet use some safeguards:

  1. 1 Corinthians 14:3 says God speaks edification, exhortation, and comfort. In simple terms, we can know that:

“The Comforter (name for the Holy Spirit Jn.15:26) comforts and the Accuser (name for Satan Rev.12:10) accuses.”

You won’t go wrong sensing God’s words of love and comfort to you and writing them down. Even if God is convicting your conscience, He always does so in love, to bring you up higher into all He has for you.

  1. God is love. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Love makes all of life work as it should. I find this is the main thing God wants to speak to us on a daily basis. Love is the encouragement, right perspective, and proper motivation for what we all face in day to day life.

  2. When hearing God for guidance, we need to add more safeguards than simply, “Is it comforting and edifying?” You need to assure that it lines up with the Word of God and get confirmation from those who have spiritual authority in your life.

Colossians 3:15 says to let the peace of God reign in your heart. In Greek “reign” means “umpire.”

With God’s peace umpiring in your life, you can learn sensitivity to Him telling you where things are “safe” and where you need to be careful because you might “strike out.

Practicing these steps and allowing time for the Lord to speak to you will encourage you and give you more peace and rest in this ever-changing world.