Hearing God Part 4 – How Much Wine Do You Want?
I love the story of Jesus’ first recorded miracle. He was at a wedding with his mom. When the party ran out of wine, Jesus turned approximately 180 gallons of water into the very best wine. I’m sure it was an excellent party!
The thing that strikes me about the story is that Jesus is not the one who determined the quantity of wine that was created. That was completely up to the servants who went to fetch the water. How much wine did Jesus create? He created as much wine as the water they brought. His provision was proportional to their expectation.
This has application in many areas of life, but I’ve been thinking about hearing God’s voice and my observation is that this principle of expectation is extremely relevant to our experience of hearing God’s voice.
Most people that I speak to who struggle to hear God’s voice don’t expect to hear God’s voice. They don’t bring much water so they don’t get much wine. If they want to hear God’s voice with more frequency, clarity, and specificity, they need to adjust their expectations accordingly.
This implies that I can choose what I expect. Many don’t view their expectations in this way. Instead, expectations are simply the inevitable results of past experiences. I expect to experience what I have previously experienced. In this view, I am a victim of my past experiences and I will never step into anything other than what I’ve previously walked in. But what if that’s not true?
What if, though I’ve never previously seen water turn to wine, I still have the power to choose to bring water to Jesus anyway? What if I can choose my expectations? I think I can. More than that, I think I have. Here’s what I mean. If I can choose my expectations, then perhaps I have chosen my expectations. If I see my expectations as being subject to my experiences, perhaps I have chosen to submit my expectations to my experiences. Perhaps I have chosen to allow my experiences to have authority in my life. Perhaps I’ve chosen this so consistently for so long that it really doesn’t feel like a choice anymore. It has simply become the lens through which I view reality. If I remain in the grip of this assumption, I will remain a victim of my past experiences. My past experiences (or the lack thereof) will actually be lord of my present and my future.
If you’ve struggled in the past to hear God’s voice. Today you can make a choice that this past experience does not have authority over your present expectations. Instead, you can determine that God is in charge. His word is authoritative! Does God’s word tell you that you can hear God’s voice? (Read John 10) If so, then perhaps you should start hauling some water!
Hearing God Part 3 – How do I tune in to God’s voice?
Have you ever noticed how sometimes God’s agenda doesn’t seem to match yours? I have. No where have I found this to be more the case than when it comes to my expectations regarding hearing God’s voice. In my life I’ve often felt a need to hear God’s voice about a great variety of things: jobs, decisions, relationships, finances, direction etc. I believe God certainly cares about those kinds of things and does speak to us about those kinds of things. But I’ve come to understand in the last few years that those really aren’t the center of what God wants to speak about.
God knows something we are at times slow to learn. Everything listed above that I “need” to hear God about are circumstantial issues. Every item on that list has to do with God guiding or providing within the circumstances I’m facing. Again, God definitely does lead and supply in a very real and circumstantial way, but I don’t think that’s his primary objective. God knows that changing my circumstances will not change me and his objective is the transformation of my heart and mind. Though he cares about my circumstances, he’s aware that the strategic target of his powerful voice needs to be internal, not external. If his desire is to transform me so that I can become the person I was created and redeemed to be (thank you Bob Hamp), and if transforming my circumstances will not accomplish that goal (which it won’t), then it only makes sense that God is primarily interested in talking to me about the stuff on the inside of me, more than the stuff on the outside of me.
To grow in hearing God’s voice, we might need to adjust the dial a bit – change the frequency on our receiver. I think we need to tune in to the frequency on which God is transmitting. He is speaking creatively. He is speaking transformationally. He is speaking about who we are and who he is. He is speaking about the core beliefs of our heart that are deeply embedded in our thought processes, emotional reactions, and assumptions about God and ourselves. If we begin to ask God what he wants to say to us about that, we might be surprised at how easy it becomes to hear God’s voice.
I believe that as we grow in this way, it will then also become easier to recognize God’s voice when he does want to speak to us about circumstantial issues, which he does and will. When we approach things this way, however, even his guidance and provision will become a revelation to us of who he is and who we are in him. Even his power released externally will be transformational internally.
Hearing God Part 2 – Why do You Have an Appendix?
Through the years I have had several friends who have had their appendix surgically removed. Though the pain that necessitated this procedure was bad, and the recovery was inconvenient, they have been able to live normal lives without having a functioning appendix. This is because your appendix doesn’t have a use within the body that we know of.
I think adult imagination has largely gone the way of the human appendix. We have it, but it doesn’t often serve any useful purpose. I’ve been listening to Greg Boyd’s recent series “Animate” and he talks about this a great deal.
We have this amazing ability to inwardly see, hear, taste, touch and smell. We all have this dramatic inward experiential reality. As children most of us utilized this capacity in play, but as adults, for many of us, it simply has lost usefulness.
For many adult believers I know their inward capacity to envision simply gets in the way. As they try to pray or read the Bible, their minds simply wander from the abstract spirituality they are attempting to practice toward something concrete, like the laundry that’s waiting to be done. For them, taking every thought captive is simply an exercise in getting that part of their brain to think about nothing instead of the something that will distract them from the important work of the spiritual practices.
Many others have a very powerful and active inward exeriential reality and they are completely in bondage to it. Fear, lust, or both have so gripped them that this great capacity inside their heads to powerfully envision and experience is a constant hinderance in their lives.
I have no idea what an appendix is for, but I suspect that our inward imagination is designed by God for more than make believe when we’re children or a hinderance to us as adults. The Bible is full of the stories of people who experience dreams, visions, and hear the voice of God. Where does all this take place? I believe the powerful human capacitiy to inwardly experience powerful and transforming reality (the imagination) is the canvas upon which God reveals himself to us.
Try turning in your Bible to a familiar passage in the gospels. As you read, instead of working to discipline your imagination to not wander off to the laundry, actively engage your imagination to experience the reality you are reading about. See the story, smell the smells, hear the sounds, touch the lepers, taste the bread. You’ll be amazed at how engaging your imagination in that way transforms your time in scripture.
Next time you are worshipping at church, instead of simply singing the lyrics and trying to keep your mind from wandering towards the concrete items pending on your to-do list, actively engage your imagination. See yourself walking into God’s throne room; see him seated there in his glory. See the elders and the living creatures. See the six-winged angels. See the nations before him bowing down. See yourself approaching to worship the King. Why do you think the Bible has given us such rich imagery?
As you learn to actively engage your inward world in your reading of scripture and your life of worship, you will, I believe, be activating your imagination for use in accordance with its original design. Start working that muscle out a bit in these kinds of ways, and you will be amazed at how much easier it becomes to hear God’s voice. That’s the arena in which he most often speaks. Use it or lose it!
Hearing God and Wiggling your Ears
Can you wiggle your ears? I can’t. Wish I could. I had a friend once that could wiggle their ears independently of each other and raise either eyebrow. This is a great source of fun and entertainment.
I think the frustrating thing for me is that it’s not as if I “can’t” wiggle my ears. It’s just that I don’t know how. The muscles are all there but I can’t isolate them and activate them. The muscles are wired to my brain. My brain just doesn’t know how to activate those muscles. The neural pathway is lost. Or something like that.
People often ask me about how they can learn to hear God’s voice. As I listen to their stories, it sometimes feels like someone asking me how they can learn to wiggle their ears. They know they have all the tools needed to do it, but they just aren’t sure how to access them. They can’t seem to isolate and activate that “muscle”.
You’ve heard it said… (part 2)
It is our own misunderstanding of Jesus’ mission and message that has us continually needing to release the next update of “church”. Cultural relevance, whether it is an adjustment to the Reformation or to Post-Modernism should never be the target. If cultural relevance must be the target then let’s define the culture rightly. To what culture should we be conforming? The edgy new culture that is arriving on the scene? The traditional culture which many find difficult to release? Here is how Jesus would answer this question.
“When you pray, pray like this; Our Father (Source, Origin) in Heaven (Whose culture is the Spiritual realm) hallowed be Your Name (You belong at the center of all things). Your Kingdom come (may the culture of the Heavenly Realm, the Presence of your Nature, be the thing that we conform to) your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven (please be the shaping and transforming power that restores to earth and all its inhabitants, the original design of creation).
Because the Knowledge of Good and Evil has shaped our understanding and perceptual pathways we associate God with the Traditions from which we are trying to extricate ourselves, instead of associating Him with the Life-Giving encounters the whole world is starved for.
God heartily invites us to spend our day moving in His life-soaked presence. We fear He wants us to give up fun stuff. God urges us to let go of the things which choke our soul. We fear He wants to control us. God offers us a connection to the very Force that brought all things into existence. We fear He wants us to be slaves.
Listen again this week to the teachings of Jesus. Though He occasionally instructed us about navigating the Earth-realm; overwhelmingly, the bulk of His teaching had much more to do with the Nature and Availability of the Heavenly Realm. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” is not a statement which introduces institutional principles. It is the beginning of a description of a place that He has been and we have not. It is the description of a place that is available to us in our day to day lives.
Let’s not change what the church does again. Let’s change instead, where we operate from.
Recent Posts
- Hearing God Part 4 – How Much Wine Do You Want?
- Hearing God Part 3 – How do I tune in to God’s voice?
- Hearing God Part 2 – Why do You Have an Appendix?
- Hearing God and Wiggling your Ears
- You’ve heard it said… (part 2)
- Finding purpose in the Word of the Lord
- You’ve heard it said…
- Plans or wineskins
- Seeing the invisible God
- The bride of Christ is a rather large woman
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