Does God Speak Today?

I really think that many of us believe that God has said all He is going to say and that He is quiet now. So, how does He interact with you today?

I spent a few hours talking with a friend today about how God speaks into her life and into my life. When you're with someone who allows God to speak into their life, something strange happens. A strong sense of trust and safety encompasses you. It was pretty amazing. I found myself confessing things that I am afraid to let the world know about me. Things that I know are deeply rooted inside me.

Two weeks ago in Staff meeting, Craig made a flip comment about how we 'listen'. That when we really listen, we obey. He was associating that with his son, who heard him the first time he told him to put his shoes on, but Craig knew he was listening when after the second request, his son left what he was doing and obeyed his father.

One of the lessons I put together last spring was on listening to God's voice. I re-used it again a week ago when I spoke at the Saturday night service. In it I related a memory I had of conversations with my mother in which she emphasized quite clearly the difference between merely hearing something and listening - meaning that I took her words inside me and acted on them.

James 1:22 says "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

Today, as I was speaking with my friend, we were discussing how we heard God speaking into our lives. She looked right at me and said, "You have to obey Him to show that you are listening."

That makes me wonder what it is that God is speaking to me. I fully understand that I am a strong-willed, bullheaded woman. I know that God loves that about me. He made me to be who I am. At the same time I know that is what keeps me apart from Him. When I forget to relinquish that part of me to Him, He has a much harder time getting through to me. I actually have a lot of things in my life that I obviously have trouble relinquishing to God.

I believe that God is preparing us for an amazing transformation. I have no idea how long it is going to take for that preparation and I have no idea how He will manifest Himself, but I am confident that we are on the cusp of something very exciting.

I don't want to miss it. I want desperately to be a tool to be used by God however He will. And to do so, I need to continue listening and obeying His call in my life. It's kind of exciting. It's really scary. It's the activity of a God who still moves and interacts with His creation.