Posts tagged hear
WAIT... for what?
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Since ancient times

no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen

any God besides You

who acts on behalf of those who

 wait for Him.

Isaiah 64v4

My listening in the Word this morning took me on a wild ride that started in Matthew chapter 3 at the fascinating moment of Jesus’ baptism. My heart caught at these words:

At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (v16,17) 

It’s that “well pleased” comment that has always drawn me. The idea that now, because I am adopted by His Son, I am included in that phrase. Not because I’m good or I try hard or I somehow stand out—but just because Jesus brought me into Himself.

Will I ever grasp that?

But this morning I heard that softest whisper from the Spirit on this phrase:

At that moment, heaven was opened…

I’ve seen heaven opened.

And the story is longer than I can include here, but it’s true. When the elders of our little church in Santa Cruz circled ‘round me to anoint me with oil and pray that God would heal my broken ears… right when I hit bottom and the blackness in my heart threatened to sink me,

I saw… or felt… or experienced… heaven opened.

Light streaming through, engulfing me, surrounding me, warming me in those frigid recesses of my soul. My rebellious, angry, blasphemous soul.

And ever since then I have been different.

Like Moses when he stumbled down the mountain after meeting with God… Like Peter and John and James when they heard and felt and experienced God on the mountain. Like Paul when he was “caught up” and saw things he could barely describe.

Imperfect, mixed up, broken people who caught a glimpse of… Glory.

This morning as I curled up with tea and a soft blanket out in this cabin in the woods where I meet Him early, I realized something wonderful, something I’d not noticed in all the telling of my story. Just this:

Every time we turn to Him, every time you or I open His Word and ask Him to speak. Every time we ask Him to show us His glory…

He does.

Not normally in a nice zap that would make for good T.V…

Nor usually in grandiose Las Vegas style glitz…

Simply because His glory isn’t mostly like what we think…

His glory is Himself.

When we come messy, needy, desperate.

When we know our own limitations and despair at our ineptitude.

When we get to the place of such poverty that we cannot go on.

And when we wait, hands open, heart yielded, wanting only Him,

That’s when He shows us His glory, Himself.

I want to be that one He finds waiting.

I think you do too.

I want to wait every day, not passively wishing for a zap, but actively waiting on tippy toes for His glory.

Listening, looking, hoping… for Him.

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. Can you tell us how you hear Him? How you see His glory? Because He speaks in the ways we can hear and shows Himself in ways we can see, sharing His glory with each other opens our ears and eyes to Him in new ways.

 

(image by Abi Porter)

HE'S NOT YOUR PRINCE CHARMING: learning to hear
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For the next few weeks we will be reposting from He’s Not Your Prince Charming, reaching way back in the archives to remind and reteach and rethink what we’ve been learning together. I have asked my blog team to help choose their favorites, and I am hoping you will add fresh comments to shed new light on these posts. In the meantime I will be writing ahead for the new series, studying, reading, thinking, and praying about what to say and how to say it. Any suggestions and thoughts about what you’re wondering about will be most welcome— after all, you are my girls! 

From my heart,

Diane

(image by Hillary Kupish)

Healthy people do not need a doctor— sick people do.

I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough.

Mark 2v17

God blesses those who realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them.

Matthew 5v3

 

It is early.  Deep dark, winter cold…quiet and still and… welcoming.

No alarm clock woke me, just a quiet whisper… an excited urging… an expectant sense of something more, of something I need.

Something I want.

And this: the certain knowing that Someone wants me by myself… for Himself.

That He has something to say… to me… today.

And that if I don’t get up I’ll miss it.

I’ll miss Him.

And so, hair wild, barefoot and barely awake, I shuffle to the kitchen to start my tea. While the kettle heats, I make my place: furry blanket, shiny tea cup, pretty napkin, scented candle.

Like a fort for a grown-up girl, this is my tucked-in place, my refuge before the day begins.

And He’s there, I know He is, with a knowing that cannot be explained and will not be denied.

I relish my first cup with Him. Heart open, mind still half asleep, I sink deep, listening.

I bring no list, no worries.

I don’t pray.

I just listen… and sip tea.

And after a while I open His Book of Words to the place I left off the day before, reading, listening, talking, asking, taking notes.

Hearing.

It didn’t used to be this way for me. For years and years I got up because I had to. Because someone told me I should. Because I needed to be disciplined and do my duty and do it right and do it every day, no matter what.

Because I like rules and this was rule #1: A good Christian reads her Bible every morning. Amen.

And so I’d be up when the clock said seven and I’d put in my time. No yearning, no feasting, no wanting, never listening. Just a list and my Bible and the clock ticking.

And sometimes I’d miss and feel terribly guilty. Ashamed. Less-than. So I’d resolve never to sleep in again, never to miss my “devotions”, lest I mess up somehow and miss the mark.

That went on for years.

Until one morning. A morning seared into my soul as if it were yesterday. Not a memory so much as a mark on the inside of me. Forever I will call it The Morning After.

That morning I woke up early too. Mind racing, questions clamoring for answers, I snuck quietly into the living room while three children slept, hoping they’d sleep a little longer than usual.

Desperate to hear.

The night before, at my husband’s urging, I’d met with the elders of our little church in Santa Cruz. In a cramped back room they’d prayed for me, prayed over me, anointed me with drops of less-than magical oil and asked God to heal me.

For no reason any doctor could find, my hearing was failing. And I was terrified… and angry… appalled that the God I had dutifully served would allow deafness to swallow me.

I’d come to these men wanting healing, willing to beg God in their presence as I’d been begging Him every day for months.

And as they prayed, something happened.  Something magical and mystical and biblical and wonderful— I heard God.

I mean I really heard Him. Not an impression, not an idea or a quote that somebody else had said about Him. I heard Him.

I heard words.

Not the words I wanted to hear, in fact, the words He gave me sounded much like the ones my dad had used when, as a little girl, I’d panic and he’d calm me with a stern sort of love. Nothing sweet or quaintly Christian.

To all my begging for healing, for ears to open wide, for the deafness threatening my world to go away— for the healing I knew He could do if only He would… I heard this—

Diane, it’s okay. It’s okay, Diane, it’s okay.

And let me tell you, girls, those were the most beautiful words I have ever heard. Rich with knowing, dripping with the kind of love I had only dreamed about, His words enveloped me in… glory.

In that moment of NO, I felt more joy than I’d ever felt before. It was okay! Gloriously, beautifully, magically okay.

I floated home from that impromptu prayer meeting, holding His words close in. I’d heard Him, really heard Him. He’d called me by name.

God spoke, He speaks… to me!

That is why I was up in the dark hours on that Morning After. I had to know if it was true, if I’d heard what I thought I had… or if I was just overwrought and delusional, a pathetic mess.

And that, my dear girls, was the beginning— the first morning of my love affair with the Savior. Because He met me there, filling my heart with more words— stern words, truth words, words about life and joy and trust.

He wrapped me in words and drew me into an intimacy I’d never known possible.

By the time the children got up and Phil started coffee, I was ablaze with joy. Spilling with hope, feeling so loved and known and cherished and full.

And every morning since it’s been the same. Quieter, for sure, less drama and more restful entering in. I come to meet Him, to talk and more than anything else, to listen.

Every morning, with the house all quiet, I come to Him— the One who knows me, all of me, and still wants me for Himself. I open His Word and let His words speak deep.

Sometimes, to tell the truth, I can barely hear Him. On those mornings I wait. I sip tea, I make another pot. I read further or I read it again. And slowly, if I’m willing and wait long enough, He quiets me enough to hear.

Because He is always speaking. Through His Word and around His Words, using words to love and teach and reveal and convict and set free. But sometimes I cannot hear… and always I hear imperfectly, like the deaf woman I am.

I know this post was a bit rambling again… but next week I have less mystical, more practical thoughts to share with you.

For now, know this:

  • God speaks… really says things… to you and to me.
  • He speaks mostly and most clearly through His Word.
  • We hear best in the quiet, and it’s up to us to clear space for that restful listening.
  • He speaks loudest to those who come in need— the ones, like me, who fail and cannot get up. The broken and thirsty, the desperately repentant.
  • He wants to be felt— experienced, heard, seen. He has sent His Spirit to make sure that happens. And He has given instructions to pave the way, with guidelines to keep us from getting… sort of… well… weird.
  • If you can’t seem to hear Him yet… be patient. He knows you want to and He’s helping you even now. Nothing happens fast in His Kingdom. Just let Him bring you close and teach you.

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. If you’ve heard Him, will you say so? Will you leave us a note to encourage those who are still wanting to hear but frustrated in the silence?

And if you’re one of the many who’ve told me you’re still waiting… will you leave just a simple message so I can pray alongside you?

Just your name is enough… and maybe “still waiting”.

 

 

 

LISTENING TO GOD IN EVERYDAY ARAMAIC
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In Acts 26 Paul is talking to a man who has shown very little interest in God, and yet there is this sense in the narrative that the man (King Agrippa) leans forward as Paul tells his story. He begins with a little background, then jumps right in to the best part:

One day…

a light from heaven brighter than the sun shown down on me and my companions. We all fell down, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

It is hard for you to fight against my will.”

(Acts 26:12-14 NLT)

Out of nowhere came a flash of the brightest light he’d ever seen. It was so brilliant and so powerful he couldn’t help but fall to the ground in terror. He was so traumatized by the light he couldn’t see, and refused to eat or drink for three days. (see the whole story in Acts 9)

That’s one way to hear God.

Not exactly the most intimate and comfortable, I doubt Paul asked for more of the same. In fact, I’d surmise that Paul never fully lost his fear of God’s power after that encounter in the middle of the road to Damascus. If listening to God’s voice made him blind and unable to eat or drink for several days, he may have been just a bit gun shy about hoping to hear again.

But what strikes me in his retelling of his story is side note that the words God spoke to him were in Aramaic.

Not in Hebrew, the language of religion.

Not in Greek, the language of literature.

Just in the everyday language of Paul’s life.

Normal stuff.

And that is still how God speaks. In the everydayness of our lives.

Sometimes (but not very often) He speaks loud. Booming, attention getting commands. But those are once in a lifetime messages. A last resort to get our attention or save us from ourselves.

Usually He just speaks normal.

One morning just a little while ago, on a day we’d set aside for Sabbath rest, He spoke to me like this:

Di, don’t make this day about you. Be friendly— a fun, light hearted, laughing, encouraging companion to Phil. Lighten up! This is the day I have made—

ENJOY IT!

And my heart responded, Yes! I get it.

After too many hard to make decisions, my husband needed me to help him just have fun. And since fun is not exactly my middle name, God needed to speak those words to me lest I sabotage his rest by hijacking the day with more heavy stuff.

Simple, everyday Aramaic.

And so very wise and right.

All day long those words resonated in my mind. Over and over I made myself steer the conversation to fun, encouraging words. It felt as if God and I were in cahoots together to brighten Phil’s day.

We rode bikes around Sauvie Island, brought home heaps of fresh fruit and veggies, laughed and admired the beauty God was displaying that day just for us.

Are you learning to listen to those simple, everyday words He’s speaking to you? With your Bible open in your lap, your pen poised to write it down, what is He saying?

From my heart,

Diane