“Step right up! Step right up! The person who can tell me what’s behind door #4 will win the chance to go into their own ministry and be awarded the title ‘Hearer of God’.” This example may be a little ridiculous, but how many times does this sound like what people are looking for when they start ‘hearing from God’? It’s sort of the unwritten rule when you first get saved, that you must hear from God on every, single, issue. But who really does?
Honestly, I think most people aren’t sure of the right decision before they make it, but that is unacceptable in our religious society, so we slap a ‘thus saith the Lord’ on our decision. If for nothing else, it quiets the critics and eases our own mind. Except, the problem with that is, that not everything is actually spoken and ordained by the Lord. So, if it isn’t, aren’t we setting ourselves up for failure?
There is a saying in our household that is referenced when one of us believes the other is exaggerating a story: “Check your RAS.” Your Reticular Activating System (commonly known as RAS) is the part of your brain that you can ‘program’. It is the functional part of the axiom, ‘mind over matter.’ If you say something long enough, eventually you’ll believe it, and if you believe something long enough, eventually you can’t help but act upon your beliefs. The thing that makes your RAS so powerful is that it cannot distinguish between real events (the present) and fake ones (the memory). When we tell a story and embellish certain areas, our RAS relives the entire situation and then stores the embellishment as memory, so that the next time we tell the story, the embellished version is our reality. If you embellish a second time, that memory will be saved and the more you fib, the more and more the story goes askew. I could go on and on about this, but the point I am trying to make is this: when you say that something is from God enough times but it really isn’t, pretty soon your RAS or more importantly your heart, will believe it.
Life can get tricky when you start believing and acting on things that aren’t true. It’s just a hop, skip, and step from disappointment, discouragement, and rejection. We set ourselves up believing God has breathed life into our circumstances, only to be disappointed by the less-than-fabulous outcome. Now, I’m not saying God can’t meet you where you’re at and turn situations around for you, but what I am saying is that it’s a longer road. When we detour from what He has for us, we put distance between ourselves and the ‘prize.’
Maybe, just maybe, if we were more honest with ourselves from the beginning, we wouldn’t need to detour. If we got a little more comfortable with the whole idea that we don’t have all of the answers and we don’t necessarily see the right decisions every time, we would have less confused, hurting people in the world. An attitude of humility could really do wonders for us – go figure.
It’s funny to me, well interesting rather, when people tell me God told them to do a certain thing and coincidentally that thing lines up perfectly with their own ambitions and goals. I want to say, ‘well, your god seems to give you what you want when you want it – where do I sign up?’ You see, when the God that I serve speaks, He usually is telling me to do something uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and in spite of me, not because He’s cruel, but because He is trying to get me to grow and take steps out of my own mess. As humans, we are creatures of habit, even if our habits are causing us pain, misery, and heartache, we will stick with them because the fear of the unknown is too daunting. God loves us too much to watch us sit in our own filth. He wants to show us things and have us experience freedom on a level we hadn’t been able to before. That’s the God I serve…a good God.
No one has all of the answers. At best, we all see our own little glimpse of the picture. That’s why we need each other, to fill in the blanks. Here’s the good news: He will never leave us nor forsake us. Trust that God will bring you direction that is clear and concise at the time you need it most. Trust in Him that the right path will be made known and He will be there to walk it with you the entire time.
Very good :-)
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