Do you ever think, ‘Hey, I wonder if God’s got a message for me today?’ He does. He wants to share His heart with you and help you find His purposes for today and every day. He wants to bless you and inspire you. And He wants to give you an opportunity to do something with an eternal consequence today.

So why do so many Christians feel like they don’t really hear a message from God, like ever? I like what A.W. Tozer says about how God speaks to us as Christians. Would you approach communicating with your Heavenly Father differently if you believed what Tozer believed?

He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is restful and healing to the soul.

A.W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous

Speak Lord

In the book of 1 Samuel we find the story of Samuel as a young child serving in the Temple and hearing God’s voice as he lie upon his bed one night. He kept getting up and running into Eli the priest who finally realized it was God speaking to the boy. Eli tells Samuel to go back and lie down and if God spoke again to say, ‘Speak LORD, your servant hears’. That’s the first prerequisite to hearing God’s message to us. Are we willing to hear, to listen, to have a conversation with God?

Relationships grow through communication; an exchange of ideas, experiences and feelings. You get to know others as you discover what they think and what values they hold. You find common ground and the bond grows closer, or not, depending on how closely your views align with theirs. It’s no different with God. You’ve heard all your Christian life that you’re suppose to read the Bible and pray. But do you realize that reading the Bible is simply listening to God speak? And prayer is just another form of conversation ~ of you speaking to God and also listening for His response to what you’ve shared.

He Is Always Speaking His Message

Years ago I read a book by Francis Schaeffer called He Is There And He Is Not Silent. There’s an important lesson for us in that title. The invisible God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at once. You are never out of His presence. And, He is not silent.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. There voice goes out through all the eath, and their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

He’s also given you the Bible

The Holy Scriptures are the words of God given to us to draw us close to our Creator. In the Bible He introduces us to our Savior, Jesus Christ. The Scriptures teach us how to grow in grace and be conformed to the image of Christ. Hebrews 4:12 says God’s word is alive and powerful, able to pierce down deep into the division of our soul and spirit and to discern the thoughts and intents of our heart.

Romans 12:2 says the word transforms us by renewing our minds. It both comforts us in our sorrows and convicts us of our sin. It is everything God wants us to know about Him, His plans and purposes and how we fit into it all. There’s milk for the babe and meat for the mature, there’s everything we need for life and godliness in those precious promises!

Your Servant Hears

If you want to hear God’s message to you today, just open His word. It’s there on your bookshelf or in your phone. You can read or you can listen. You can choose to explore the time when Jesus walked among us by reading the Gospels or you can dig into the life of someone you identify with. Maybe Hannah or Elizabeth, two women who had trouble conceiving a child. Possibly you’ve got a huge task before you like Moses leading the children of Israel or Nehemiah trying to build something in the midst of chaos, rubble and constant opposition. That’s how I felt some days when my kids were very young.🥴What can you glean from their experience with God? How did He encourage them, challenge them or help them?

How To Hear God’s Message To You

You’ve got to get quiet. That’s harder and harder in the modern world. We’re bombarded with noise and most of it we’ve invited in ourselves. God doesn’t shout above the clamor, He won’t compete for your attention. But, if you seek after Him you will find Him. If you wait to hear Him speak to you, He will.

In silence we create space for God’s activity rather than filling every minute with our own.

Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence

Years ago I was introduced to the writings of Fenelon, a Catholic priest charged with the Spiritual Guidance of an influential Aristocratic family. His writings to the mother could apply to any modern mom.

You greatly need certain free hours in which you could recollect yourself. Try to steal some, and be sure that these little pairings of your days will be your best treasures. Above all, save your morning, and defend it as one does a besieged city; make vigorous sallies upon intruders; clear the trenches, and then shut yourself up within your citadel.

Fenelon, Fenelon’s Spiritual Letters

What am I suggesting?
If you want to hear God’s voice you’re going to have to cultivate some silence and solitude. Do it before others can intrude. Carve out the time and guard it like a besieged city! This is a test for you to gauge how serious you really are about hearing a message from God. If you make an opportunity God will take you up on it. But you’re not in this alone. Help is already available to you if you only ask! I wrote an entire post on how we control the volume on God’s voice. We can tune Him in or flood the airwaves with competing noise. We can and do choose how much we hear from God! Here’s a link to that post.


https://kellyjgrace.com/want-to-hear-from-god-you-control-the-volume/

You Have Another Helper

In John chapter 16 Jesus told His disciples that He was going away. Of course this news freaked them out! Then Jesus told them it was really to their advantage because He was going to send a Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would guide them into all truth and help them remember everything He had said. Remember these people had been with Jesus for three years. They’d heard hundreds of sermons and parables. They’d heard what Jesus said to many individuals and all the truth He taught them as they walked the length and breadth of Israel.

These believers didn’t have personal copies of God’s word like you do, but you need the Holy Spirit’s help to understand God’s message to you every bit as much as they did.

The Messenger, The Message & You

I go back to one passage about the Holy Spirit over and over again.
I’ve been a Christian for 50+ years and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:26-40. Read the passage and notice how as Philip follows the initial leading of the Holy Spirit he then looks for an opportunity to engage the Eunuch in a conversation. Philip has a message to share.

As a Christian the Holy Spirit indwells you. He lives within you. He’s there to guide and provide. If you let Him He’ll direct your days and give you the spiritual strength you need to mature in your faith. He’ll enable you making you an effective believer in Jesus Christ and helping build the Kingdom of God. He leads you naturally and most of the time you won’t feel you’re being guided, but you are.

Living Out A Message

Here’s what I’ve noticed about my own life and I see it in Acts 8. The Holy Spirit will suggest something to me. How does that happen? I’ll be praying or reading a passage and a thought rises to the surface, Hey, what if I started a podcast during this Pandemic? I can’t go teach at a Retreat, or a Conference or even a Bible Study, but could I put out a podcast???

Now, I’m not making this a doctrine about how the Holy Spirit directs us, but I am saying this is how I believe it happens in my walk with God. I wanted to reach out to others, to continue to use my spiritual gift of teaching, but I felt blocked by the physical isolation of the early days of the Pandemic.

Most of the time I don’t recognize in the moment that I’m being guided. But later, in hindsight, when looking back I can clearly see how the Holy Spirit seeded an idea and then helped me get it across the finish line. Can you relate? Is there a story you can tell of how you’ve been directed, guided, prompted by the Holy Spirit? Did you talk to a neighbor about Jesus? Did you help someone when you saw a need? Living out your faith can look like simply doing something kind, but it’s the Holy Spirit prompting you to take action.

God’s Message For You Today

The message God has for you today is this: He’s always speaking! He’s always listening as well. If you’re open to it ~ He’s always willing to guide and direct your steps into His will, into something that will bless others and draw you even closer to Him. Remember that what God wants is a loving relationship with you. He longs for you to experience His love and His tenderness and to discover His best for your life! He also wants to give you lots of opportunity to participate in His plans in this world. He’s given you spiritual gifts and a holy calling. You’ll find the greatest satisfaction you’ve ever known in discovering and doing His will.

Early in my Christian life I started believing a subtle lie that Satan kept whispering in my ear. His goal was to make me doubt God. In the very first episode of Divine Connections I share the story of how God’s message to me healed a deep hurt that Satan had played on to make me feel uneasy with God. It’s a good illustration of how our Enemy will use anything he can to keep us from a close relationship with God and from hearing His message to us.

You can listen at https://open.spotify.com/episode/4X6n3CyUymOhULG3beYKvI

Do you find reading your Bible feels like a chore? What if Jesus was leading your time in the word? You can explore more about that in this blog post https://kellyjgrace.com/bible-reading/

Give Him An Opportunity To Speak Every Day

The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened my ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away.

Isaiah 50:4-5

If you let Him, God will speak to you every day. Will it be earth-shattering? Probably not. But it’s amazing to think that the Creator of the Universe wants to talk to you. He has things to say. Words of love, and yeah, sometimes words of correction or warning too. But whatever it is, you should want to hear it. You should make an opportunity to listen to Him.

Do you want to be one of the learned Isaiah is talking about? A person who’s been taught by God and equipped with a message to share with someone who is weary. Maybe it’s wisdom for your squabbling children or your struggling spouse. Maybe it’s for a friend who is currently going through a trial. Maybe it’s for your own hurting soul that’s in need of a healing word from God.
Speak LORD, your servant hears🙂

Father we long to hear from You. Help us to take action, to make available to You an opportunity to speak to us. Let our hearts burn within us as the Holy Spirit opens up the Scriptures and instructs us and Your truth renews our minds so that we become more like Jesus.
Amen

If you’d like to respond to this post you can find me on Instagram @kellyjgrace and before you go, grab one of the free resources here on the website. The Spiritual Self-Care Guide or The 25 Powerful Tips For a Better Marriage Now.🙂
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