There is a saying I once
heard. It says, “The will of God won’t
lead you where the grace of God can’t keep you.”
Are you walking in the
will of God and is there grace on the path you’re walking? Are you full of peace and joy, overflowing
with the love of God, even when things are challenging? Or are you cranky, unsettled, lacking peace,
unhappy, and so inward focused that you have little time to enjoy or serve
others? You’re either on the right path
and you just need some healing or you’re possibly on the wrong path. And if you’re on the wrong path, have you
prayed to ask the Lord to help you get on the right one?
If you have asked the Lord
to show you which way to go in life, are you hearing anything yet? If not, perhaps this has become your
experience. Suddenly, many things you’re
doing begin to feel like walking through wet concrete or it takes everything
within you to muster the motivation to keep doing many of the things in which
you’re currently involved.
Sometimes, when we've prayed, but we aren't listening or perhaps we don’t know how to listen, our cry
for help results in making us suddenly aware of where God’s grace is and where
it is not! And where it is NOT becomes
so uncomfortable that we eventually run in different directions, trying this
one and that one, until we sense that “relief” where the grace of God is going
before us. Then we go “Ahhh! Thank You God!” This is a course in the school of hard
knocks. The good news is that there is a
place of higher learning.I’ll be 50 years old this
year (it’s currently 2013) and I've learned a lot of things. Many things I learned the hard way, sorry to
say. I have multiple certifications from
the school of hard knocks. In fact, I
think I learned WHAT to do by first learning what NOT to do. Walking paths with NO grace is something I perfected. Today, I am still learning some things, but I
am finally redeeming the time and I've found a route to the path of grace. Wanna go?
I could write volumes about
this leg of my faith journey – cultivating an intimate relationship with the
Godhead. But in this post, I want to
hone in on hearing God’s voice and finding that path before you spend years and
lots of money on the wrong ones. I have,
on many occasions, needed direction for my life; but it took me a few years
just to figure out how to get out of my head and into my heart. The good news is that when you have a few
people in your life that have “been there, done that” and especially the hard
way, applied knowledge is the easier path to take than experiential
knowledge. All of the people who warn us
about the harder path to take, and particularly those that can back it up with
Biblical truth, it is to those people that we should listen. And if you’re still young enough, I would
encourage that. If you’re not, I would
encourage you to read on and even afterwards, pray for mentors who God has
appointed to help guide you through the next season of your life; ones who have
followed the path of wisdom and are fulfilling their destiny or ones who have
at least struggled their way to victory – like me.
Someone recently gave me a
great piece of advice and one that was confirmation and not information. She said, “We don’t always clearly hear the
‘yes’ of God, but we usually hear and understand the ‘NO’ of God.” I use the emphasis on each word because the
word ‘yes’ seems to come much more quietly than “NO!” One way I have learned this is through one of
the expressions of grace.
After I finally answered
the call to God’s invitation to walk
WITH Him, He continuously gave me the following verses over and over again and
in various creative ways:
Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV), “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Hebrews 4:7b-10,“‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.”
For the last 20 years, I have been awakened on
more nights than I wanted to, but eventually many more that gave me great
comfort and peace at 3:56 a.m. Also, for
years, it has not been uncommon for me to be driving and the Lord will say,
“Look at the time” and it is 3:56 p.m.
In fact, it has been happening to my husband and I for so long now that
he just called out from the next room saying, “3:56!” because it, in fact, is
3:56 (smile). I can be driving and will
pull up behind a police car and it will be car number 356 or 478. This has also been happening for years. Anywhere these combination of numbers appear,
the Lord will direct my attention to them.
Why? He has been teaching me
something and for years now, He has had my attention.
The reason these things had to happen for years is that is it much easier to live out of your head. It is easy to be
blown around by the lust of your flesh.
And yet, the lust of your flesh is an element of your mind. Your mind contains lots of necessary function
and is exploding with potential, but it also contains all of the weaknesses of
your personality and an enemy that will use them to defeat you if you let
him. The mind is the human battleground
for who will be in control of you. It is
the battleground where the members of your body, as Paul spoke of in Romans 6-8
are at war with one another. Like us, if
we have accepted Christ, the Spirit of God dwelt within Paul and yet he still
had to contend with his flesh desire and those to once yielded, the snares of
the enemy. He had to choose to live out
of a daily understanding and belief in his personal and positional identity in
Christ. On any given day he was, and we
have been made more than conquerors and overcomers in this life (Romans 8:37)
and we are seating with Christ in heavenly places, far above all principalities,
rulers, and thrones (speaking of the enemy).
This victory wasn't a natural thing that happened in Paul’s life, it was
for him and is for us a supernatural thing to which we yield. In so doing, the Spirit of God can then
direct our minds with a divine flow of creativity, genius, or direction
resulting in “anointed reasoning”.
GOD’S VOICE, whether in random times when
we’re not asking, or most of the time once we learn to inquire and listen;
comes in spontaneous thoughts from our heart [or spirit] that are not
analytical; but Scripturally sound and line up with God’s character.
Proverbs
16:9 (AMP) says, “A man’s mind plans his way,
but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.”
Psalm 37:23 (AMP) says, “The steps of a [good] man are
directed and established by the Lord when He
delights in his way [and He busies Himself with his every step].
Jeremiah 10:23 says, “O Lord [pleads Jeremiah in the name of
the people], I know that [the determination of] the way of a man is not in
himself; it is not in man [even in a strong man or in a man at his best] to
direct his [own] steps.”
Okay, so the point is this: get out of your head and listen to your heart
where the Holy Spirit lives and is waiting to be acknowledged. You can waste a lot of years of “critical”
thinking, years of walking a fearful path to obtain financial security (and God
knows you need that already), years of trying to figure out what you’re going
to do; without ever once giving thought to the possibility that you could get
killed in a car accident tomorrow and stand before the God that you serve and
you will have to give an account – for what?
Sure, you’ll have your ticket in, but you will be rewarded or NOT based
on the good works He prepared in advance for you to do. That path, by the way, is paved with all the
experiences you’ll need to develop your character. It will teach you to trust and
believe while God is securing you financially. It will be full of the relationships you need – including
your spouse - who will spur you on, bring you joy, mentor you, and celebrate
life. AND you'll be walking in your calling, fulfilling your destiny, and
bearing fruit that remains and that will not burn up when you stand before God.
So how do you get out of your head? Well, you can’t just stop everything on a
dime. Besides, you might be mostly on track and just needing a witty idea, a divine connection, or another door of opportunity in order to keep moving. Regardless of how on target you are or not, you can intentionally make
more time to interact with the Holy Spirit through worship and listening
prayer. After all, He is your connection
to the Father, through the victorious life of the Son. When you’re hungry, you go get something to
eat don’t you? Well, if you’re hungry for
direction in life, the Holy Spirit knows
the fastest, most joyful route to your destination.
NOTE and WARNING: As you pursue this, you’ll usually get more
than just direction. You may also end up clearing the musty atmosphere of the rooms of your soul rarely visited. Why?
Because there is probably unresolved pain there. So expect that. It’s usually a package deal. But almost immediately (depending on how intuitive
you are and take heart, the Word says you are able to do this; some more than
others but that’s okay), you’ll begin to “turn up the volume” of the creative
flow of the voice of God through the resident Holy Spirit that dwells within
you as promised by the Scriptures (John 14:17, John 14:26, John 16:13, John
16:15).
So, if this is you and you want to move from your
head to your heart, get direction from the Lord (or better yet, learn to
cultivate a life of getting continuous direction from the Lord!), or maybe even
get out of that concrete your walking through; start with the simple principle
found in Acts 13:2 which says, “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said…”
Lisa Bevere once asked
the Lord to make her hungry, to which the Lord responded that it was not His
job to make her hungry. She then asked
how she could become hungry, to which he said, “FAST.” Make some room in your busy life for tuning
to the One Whom God has sent on behalf of the victorious, resurrected Son. He lives inside of you, many times waiting for someone to inquire of His
guidance. Skip a meal and pray instead. That flow of wisdom will come. If you really want to ramp it up, get a few
trusted intercessors to pray in agreement that your spiritual senses will
become sharp and that you will hear the Lord and receive the strategy for what
to do and how to get there. Don’t grow
impatient. Be diligent to seek Him and wait for the cobwebs to clear. Then you will hear, with increasing magnitude, the One who has the blueprint for
your life and direction for the path you should take in your current season and
in every season.
