Hearing from God Without Being Crazy

We'd all like our own private revelation from God -- a direct line to the Almighty.

It would make faith so much easier. Actually, it would make faith unnecessary. We'd simply have the evidence, first hand, for ourselves.

But what we're offered instead is reports of what God said to other people, what he said to his prophets in Israel, what Jesus said to his disciples, and what God has revealed to holy men and women in the millenia since then.

How do we know that God actually spoke to them?

For me, the most compelling evidence for the truth of the Christian church is twofold:

1. I find God's presence there, glimpses of the infinite God shining forth as a sense of love and truth combined.
2. There is a consistency and harmony in the message, although expressed through many individuals from different centuries and cultures, and this message rings true to my innermost understanding.

There is something real here; there is someone real here.

To search for God while rejecting his church is to search with the assumption that God has not revealed himself to others in the past.

If he hasn't spoken before, then there's no reason to think that he will speak to you now.

If he has spoken on occasion to those who came before us, as the church teaches, then that's the place to start.

Before we can know when it is God speaking to us and when it is our own inner voices, we need to become familiar with what God has said to and through others. We need to learn of his character, and of our own.

God does speak directly to individual hearts, but that is not the primary way that he speaks to us. He has said much more to those who came before us than he could ever say to us individually, and that revelation is available to us through his church.

It is only our egos that demand a personal, customized revelation from God just for us.

Any revelation received in response to such an arrogant demand will most certainly not be from God. At best it will be a fantasy of the ego.

Hearing from God requires humility on our part.

If we come to church to evaluate and criticize, we will miss God entirely. We need to come seeking that which is beyond our understanding.

If we seek only what we can fully understand, then that's all we'll find, and it won't include God. He doesn't fit inside our understanding.

We can and should ask questions and try to understand. We just need to do it with the humility that is appropriate to our position relative to God, the Creator of all that is.