As a pastor, I’ve encountered so many stories about people who claim to have heard from God but who really haven’t—or who have misused their proclamation of it. Maybe Tom is sure he’s heard from God that he’s going to marry Angie—except God hasn’t mentioned anything about it to Angie. Tom assures her that God has indeed made this pronouncement. And now … they’re married to other people.
This type of “hearing from God” can cause all kinds of hurt, manipulation, and confusion. It sometimes makes those who claim to be led by the Spirit lose credibility in the eyes of those around them. In addition, I’ve seen dozens of well-meaning Christians, desperate to hear and follow God’s voice, adopt all kinds of unhelpful practices for attempting to hear it. There are those who follow the “Random Verse Method.” Have you ever done this or known someone who has? It’s when you need direction from God, so you flop open your Bible and expect the random page you now see to hold the key to your problem. The Random Verse Method is not a reliable strategy for hearing from God.
There’s the “Fleece Method,” also known as the “Open Doors Method.” This is when a follower of Jesus will put out a “fleece” like Gideon did to determine God’s will. For example, “If I get a hole in one today at mini-golf, I will see it as a sign from God that I should ask my girlfriend to marry me.” Or, “If the company calls before 7:00 p.m. today, then I should take the job in Arizona.” The Open Doors Method is a variant of the same: “If the door opens for us to buy the house, then it must be God’s will to move forward. If the door closes, then we shouldn’t buy the house.”
Though well-intentioned, these methods for hearing God’s voice can quickly create a world of confusion, uncertainty, and missteps. They rarely produce confident, faith-filled followers of Jesus, because they are fundamentally flawed in their premises. They work from the assumption that God is like a puppet master, seeking to control every movement of his puppets. Or that he’s like a computer program. If you put in the right code, you will get the desired result.
But God is not a riddle that must be solved; he is a Father who must be known. Hearing from God flows from authentic relationship with him.
Here are four simple tests can help you avoid confusion when it comes to discerning God’s voice.
These four tests will help you build a library of evidence when it comes to knowing and following God’s voice. Over time, like in any relationship, you will become more and more familiar with the direction of God (John 10:27).
Justin Kendrick is the author of Bury Your Ordinary and lead pastor of Vox Church, which he founded in 2011 with a small group of friends on the doorstep of Yale University. Since then, Vox has grown to multiple locations across New England. The dream of Vox Church is to see the least-churched region of the U.S. become the most spiritually vibrant place on earth. Justin and his wife live outside New Haven, Connecticut with their four children.
https://www.amazon.com/Bury-Your-Ordinary-Practical-Habits/dp/0830781188
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Taken from Bury Your Ordinary by Justin Kendrick. Used by permission from David C Cook.
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