“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NLT)
It’s clear to me now, but there was a time I was always seeking to know God’s will. “Lord, what do you want me to do?” was the cry of my heart. Even as a Pastor I would seek His will for what I was to preach, which, of course, I should. But that’s not how the Lord wants to work.
Now, I’m not as prone to ask for God’s will as I am to ask Him to give me clarity and insight into where He’s working. For example, if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know the Lord has given me a heart for my neighbors. For years my heart’s cry has been for God to show me how to reach my neighbors.
And that’s all well and good, but what He’s teaching me now is, I can’t see my neighborhood as the location of many houses, or even many people, I must be vigilant in cultivating relationships with certain neighbors. “But which ones?” seems to be the logical question. “And how do I choose?” And this is where it gets fun – see, that’s the point! I don’t choose, the Lord does. All I have to do is pay attention to where He’s already at work. How do I do that? I listen! God will and does speak very definitively and very clearly.
And here’s the really good part of that: you don’t have to be on your knees begging God to speak, you just have to have confidence that He will and open your heart and mind to receive what He wants to say. I was busily engaged in something the other day and the Lord said: “Reach out to ______,” and He gave me the names of two of my neighbors.
“What should I say, Lord?” Sometimes I get a sense the Lord is thinking: “Do I have to do everything for you?” But that’s me, He’s much too kind and thoughtful to think those kinds of things. But He said, as He often does for a blog article: “Sit down and listen.”
Why am I going into such detail? Because some of you have never heard God speak and you need to know He doesn’t speak in mysterious ways that are difficult to “hear.” Just as His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we’re His child (Romans 8:16), He will “speak” clearly from His Spirit to ours, but it takes some practice to learn to discern it’s His voice.
And let me be clear, this isn’t about emotion. At times I get emotional because of our conversations, but I don’t have to work myself up into some kind of emotional frenzy to be certain it’s the Lord. The Lord and I go back a lot of years, and I’ve mistaken emotion for His Spirit on more occasions than I care to remember.
Am I talking about “speaking in tongues?” Not necessarily, but I have a lot of Pentecostal brothers and sisters who have spoken in tongues in my presence and have certainty that the Lord is the Author of those words, even though they don’t understand them. That’s different than what I’m sharing now, because the whole point of mine and the Lord’s conversation is that I understand clearly and let His words guide what He’s prompting me to do or say to me or to someone else through me.
As with my neighbors, He understands exactly what’s going on in their lives and will guide me to “strike” the proverbial “responsive chord” in their lives that will enable them to know the words aren’t just from me, but from Him.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 