May 10, 2012
Really?
Recently one of our young men gave an exceptional communion meditation.
After the service I overheard a woman asking him if he had written it himself
and he said, “Yes”. Showing she
underestimated the young man’s talents she said in disbelief, “Did you really write it?” The young man
again said, “Yes”, but I’m not sure
the woman was convinced. No doubt many of us do something similar when we hear
God’s response loud and clear and yet we ask Him, ‘Did You really say that?’
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----My Pentecostal brethren of many years ago were always saying, “God told me this,” or “God said to do that.” I still hear it occasionally. And I always have to refrain from going, “Really? How did He tell you? Did you hear it in your ear? Were you sure to write it down so we can add it to what He told the rest of the prophets and apostles?” I know. I’m too audacious. So I never say what I think when I hear this.
-----It is a scary thing to think God is directly and clearly speaking to us, or even clearly signaling His directions. I don’t mean it is completely fallacious to think it. I mean just what I said: it is scary. I’ve worshipped with Pentecostals. I’ve worshipped with Baptists. I’ve worshipped with Campbellites (whom I consider to be the most squared up with the Word,) and with Presbyterians, Nazarenes, and even Seventh Day Adventists. All of them are sure God speaks to them. Yet none of them throw down their walls of theological differentiation and worship with one another although the One True God is clearly speaking to them all! Moreover, some of my Jehovah’s Witness friends have mentioned their hearings from God, as have the few Mormons I’ve known. And we all have in these latter years experienced how scary it is when God talks to the Muslims. Yes, hearing from God is a scary thing.
-----But He does speak to us. We all can hold what He has said in our hands and read it and know what He’s said. That is the nature of language. It is a code that works by rules known to both the encoder and decoder as grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. He chose the common languages of common peoples as the code for His speaking, I think, because common people knowing the same coding rules could decode His message. Well, OK. Plainly stated: so common people could read what He said. Yet we come away from reading the same message with far different meanings because He gives the message clearly while we, the foggy ones, must do the taking of it. The muddle isn’t in it’s giving; it is in its taking.
-----I know God does speak to people in ways they understand. He speaks to me in a way that would bore you to snoring if I tried to explain it, if I could find the words to explain it. But I think that much, much more often than God speaks to people their own intense desires to be meaningful speaks to them and is misperceived as being Him. So carefully I watch what I hear.
-----“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” (John 17:21-22) And we have the audacity to wall ourselves off into separate denominations of our own understandings and worship the One True God through Him who said that!? We little more than recognize each other’s existence, while politely denying each other’s legitimacy. Yet we claim to love as He said to love. And certainly, surely we hear Him speaking to us! God speaking to us is a scary thing.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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