Can You Hear What The Spirit Is Saying?

 Chip Brogden


"And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left (Isaiah 30:21)."

God desires to confound us that we may learn to listen to Him. Before we are confounded by the Lord we are dogmatic and sure of what we believe, but now we are not so sure. Before we could hear the Lord and follow His direction, but now we hear little or nothing at all. Before we were sure of our direction and calling, but now we wonder if perhaps we were mistaken. What is happening? The Lord is confounding us. He is teaching us what it means to walk by the Spirit.

What has happened up until now is we have been led by our feelings. Indeed, God uses our feelings to lead us when we are children. But now He desires our faith to grow, and to accomplish this end He will lead us into unfamiliar territory and teach us to listen to Him. Whatever plans or formulas or programs we used to ascertain God's will in days past will be fruitless during this time. We expect the Lord to do such and such, but He does not do so. We expect to feel a certain way, but we no longer have those feelings. We expect to have a certain encounter with God as in days gone by, but God seems to hide His face from us.

Is the Lord indeed hiding Himself? Is He abandoning us to our own way and refusing to speak to us anymore? No indeed, but He wishes us to rely wholly upon Him and not upon our senses and feelings, even if in times past He used our feelings.

With respect to God's Voice and guidance, as a child we learn to listen and God does lead us along as little sheep. He has to tell us every little thing: go here, say this, don't say that, take this course, be still, etc. He will give us such a sense of His Presence as to make us feel as though we are walking on air. His direction is clear and unmistakable. Children cannot be led otherwise.

After awhile, if we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we will begin to mature. Now God begins to wean us from the life of feeling and delicious spiritual experiences. Such times occur with less frequency as we grow older. When we ask for guidance it does not come so easily. Now we have to wait, and we are not used to waiting. We begin to wonder where we have gone wrong, and why we don't enjoy the keen sense of His Presence as we did before. Perhaps we will pray more, or become busier in our spiritual disciplines, in an attempt to recapture some of those feelings we used to enjoy, and sometimes we are rewarded with the coveted feeling. Most of the time we are not. No amount of prayer, fasting, or spiritual activity will bring the feelings back. We do not hear the crystal clear Voice of God as we did before.

How easily in days gone by we would declare, "The Lord spoke to me" thus and so; but today we do not so easily make the bold confession. Instead, we wonder why we cannot hear from God. We search our heart to see if there is some unconfessed sin, but our heart does not condemn us. We are at a loss to explain what is happening.

A Christian faced with this situation should realize that children are led by God in a childish way, but as a mature believer the Lord will lead them in a mature way. Over time we are expected to know God's WAYS as well as His WILL. When we know the ways of the Lord we will speak and move in harmony with His Spirit without having to consciously stop and ask for guidance, wait for a warm feeling or tingling sensation, and then proceed.

When we first become aware of spiritual things we are so excited at being able to have a dialogue with God that we tend to expect everything to be audible or unmistakable from that point forward. If we first met God in the fire from heaven, or in the mighty rushing wind, we expect everything to be fire and wind from henceforth. This is simply not the case. When the Lord appears to us in dazzling white, we, like the disciples, attempt to build Him a tabernacle and remain there, but Jesus does not always appear to us with shining face, bathed in light.