Bible Study and The Sound of God
It says in Genesis that God made such and such, and saw that it was good. This essential goodness in all that God created, he saw; untainted so to speak. I really am provoked to thought by those lines; because it feels like the more I seek, mostly through these past few years of bible study, the more clear a vision of God is emerging for me. These stories we read and discuss and discover: they are about God. They are about you and me, and our relationship with God, but more importantly, with God through each other. These stories were told for hundreds of years to groups of people, before they were written. These stories were meant to be heard, not just read silently. They still are. For God to be heard, he needs a voice. For God to have a voice, he needs to be heard. This is relationship.
We read these stories about how God spoke directly to these people. What if God speaks directly to us now, to you, and to me? What if the only difference is that those people expected and believed that God could and did speak to them? What if they knew how to listen?
In our post-modern world, we are so convinced that God doesn’t do that anymore. Maybe we have forgotten how to hear God’s voice. In our culture, if someone says “God spoke to me” it’s either a television evangelist who is getting ready to ask us to dig deep into our pockets, or to justify some political position he has taken, that we shy away from even the possibility that God could and would speak to us, individually, like a person would, or speak to us by manifesting into everything we see and touch and feel.
What if God is always right there, in front of us, in the sounds we hear; the sounds of our everyday lives, the ticking of the clock, the pitter patter of rain, the click of the little oscillating fan in the office, or the muffled background noises in our buildings; the rush of traffic, and even in the sound of people fighting? What if we heard God calling to us in the horrible explosions of bombs, the popping sounds of rifles being fired, and the pain and agony of people slowly dying of some senseless stupid violence? What if God is talking to us, in the voices of our children, our neighbors, those in need, even those who are angry with us? If we heard God in those sounds, perhaps we would realize that he is often in agony, in our midst.
Maybe we take our images of God and clean them up too much; make them pleasant and sweet. There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting God to sound pleasant and sweet, but that is only one side of our lives, and it seems to me that when we need to hear God the most is when there is absolutely nothing pleasant and sweet going on. Maybe we think God has abandoned us because we always want God to sound a certain way. Jesus was called Immanuel, or “God with us”. If God is truly with us, all the time, then God is with us through it all. It is not a matter of having no place to hide. That would make God the great cosmic spy, constantly bugging us. But if this is God’s world, and we are the tenants, and part also of his creation, then how can we ever be away from God? If sin means estrangement, then when we sin, we stop listening and stop looking at God. That makes sense to me.
In my bible study over the past several years, what I have come to realize is that these stories are indeed about us, you and me; that this is God’s world, and that it if we are in a companion relationship with God, then one of our missions is to witness his grace and his love and to share that with others. I used to think that witnessing was about converting, and I shyed away from that word. What I realized witnessing to be now is that I have the priviledge, the honor, and the reverent joy to observe the wonder of God’s creative power, his justice, his patience, his love, and his grace. I know I use that word grace a lot, but I can’t get away from it. It keeps cropping up. I feel, can almost see lines converging, and the faint outlines of what Jesus called the Kingdom of God is coming into clarity. It’s not some eternal afterlife, although that may be a part of it; I’ll just have to wait on that one, leave that up to God. Rather, it is here and now, present and eternal in a vertical direction.
And it is as close as this time honored tradition:
Let me tell you a story.
The words of the Lord. Thanks be to God. -RSP
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God seeks a relationship with us, I am convinced of it. He calls us. We should approach him accordingly as he is Master, Creator, Lord and Father. He is in us and we are in him via the Son, the Christ, the Messiah, The Holy Spirit. If we accept, his covenant, we can converse with him telepathically, out loud, or by writing. He sent the Holy Spirit so we can be taught and led and nurtured. We can also speak for him and he indeed asks us to do just that sometimes. We must be careful though that the words are his and not ours. Check what he tells you to say and be careful to distinguish between his words and yours. There is power in his words. My favorite verses are John 1:1-5. “In the beginning was the Word.” God also created by words. And he proclaimed judgment by words.
Any relationship requires several attributes; 1. Time spent with each other, 2. Sharing and 3. Trust. God always has time, always gives and He can always be trusted. So, that leaves the condition of the relationship up to us; how much time do we spend with Him, what we are willing to give and can we be trusted by God. When we are with him we should speak to him as we would our Father, telling him our joys and accomplishments and asking about our trials and troubles. When we want to hear God we have to listen, just as Elijah found after he ran from defeating the prophets of Baal. God told him to go up the mountain, and then came an earthquake, then fire; God’s voice though only came in a gentle whisper after these. Moses had to seek God at the burning bush before he heard him. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given. Follow me.
Jesus prayed for us when he was on earth and he presents us to our Lord as we are not worthy without him. So, God found a way to have a relationship with us, in spite of our actions and non actions, but we must work at having a quality relationship with God. It requires, listening, learning, obeying, trusting, loving and allowing him to direct us through our own consciousness of His supremacy in our lives and in creation. He will never abandon us. Now, that is a positive relationship and an everlasting one. What a friend we have in Jesus, and what a privilege to be part of that relationship.
Thanks for sharing.
James Pelt
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