Does God Speak?

I am going to try to write a blog post every day for the next few weeks. Hopefully, this will be good practice for me and encouraging for any readers out there.

Currently, I am reading a book called "God Guides" by Mary Geegh. Mary was a missionary to India from 1924-1962. She is originally from Michigan.

In her book, Mary tells story after story of asking God to speak to her about a specific situation. She writes down whatever God tells her to do and then she obeys. Sometimes what God tells her to do does not seem to relate to her question, but she obeys anyway. As you might guess, once she obeys she sees why God asked that of her and how it related to her original request.

I am of the opinion that:

1. There is a God

2. He loves us

3. He wants to communicate with us

So, yes, I believe that God does speak to us if we listen. I think that we, in fact, often hear from God, but maybe we don't always like what we hear. Or maybe it is difficult to hear Him in the midst of the clanging and clatter that surround us every day. Not that God can't raise His voice loud enough to be heard above the noise, but I think He is usually not that way (sometimes, though, He most definitely is that way -- ask Paul about his journey to Damascus).

More often than not, I think we hear God when we listen. I dare to say that He is always speaking to us, and I mean that literally, but we so rarely pause to listen. You know which word I think is most important in the previous sentence? Pause.

Why do we rush? Why are we so anxious? I think it is because we do not pause to listen. If we paused to listen, might we hear from God and might the words He speaks calm our anxiety? If we paused to listen, might we actually stop rushing because, truly, what is the hurry? Does anyone who believes in God believe that he or she can accomplish more in a given amount of time than He can? In fact, we might save a lot of time by pausing to listen. Slowing down in order to allow God to guide might actually increase our daily level of "output" -- our personal and professional efficiency.

Beyond efficiency, I believe hearing from God is key to our ability to dream and pursue those dreams. Of course, we can dream without hearing from God, but are those God-given dreams? Maybe. Maybe He places dreams in our hearts and we don't even know it. And maybe we never need to know it in order to dream those dreams and pursue them. But how much more wonderful would our dreams be if God spoke them to us? And how much more confident would we be about pursuing those dreams if God spoke them to us? And, more so, what if every day He told us what to do that day to pursue the dreams He spoke to us?

I'd love to send a copy of "God Guides" to anyone who would like one. I won't have extra copies to mail out for a few weeks, but if you email me your address then I'll make sure you get one. I'm at: wmleonard@gmail.com

I wonder what God might say to you if you spent some time listening to Him tonight? Ask Him what He would like to say to you and when you hear from Him write down what He says. Then obey. As Mary Geegh says, "Where God guides, God provides."