Ducks in a Row // How Can I Hear God Speak to Me?, Part 10

As we’ve seen on “A Different Perspective” these last couple of weeks, God speaks to us in all sorts of different ways. But – well, how do we really know when He’s truly leading us in a particular direction. I mean sometimes, we have big decisions to make. How do we know that we’re truly hearing God correctly?

Well, here we are, another Friday and another end of the week and another end of the series of messages. Time flies when you’re having fun. Over these last couple of weeks we’ve been chatting about how you and I can hear God speaking into our lives, and that’s so important. One of the most common questions that people ask me is, “How can I hear God speak to me?”. And so that’s exactly what I’ve called this series of 10 messages of which today is the last. How can I hear God speak to me. And over the course of this series we’ve looked at eight different ways that God speaks to us today.

Firstly the Bible, God’s Word, the authority for God to revealing Himself to us.

Secondly, prayer: He speaks to us during our times of prayer and devotion. We can hear that still small voice of His Spirit.

Thirdly, preaching: God speaks to us through anointed preaching when someone opens the Word of God for us.

Fourthly, signs and wonders: God still uses signs and wonders from time to time to get His message across.

Next, prophets: The New Testament makes it clear that God appoints certain people in the body of Christ to be His prophets, to speak His will into our lives.
Next, He speaks sometimes out of the blue: sometimes God just pipes up completely out of the blue right in the middle of the cut and thrust of life.

Next, through the counsel of others: God so often speaks to us through other godly men and women whom He puts around us.

And finally, as we saw yesterday, through dreams and visions: that makes some people a little bit uncomfortable. But again the New Testament is clear, Acts Chapter 2: God’s plan in these last days was to speak to His people through the dreams and the visions that He gives to some.

And you add all of that up and what you discover that God is speaking rather a lot. Principally, primarily through the authority of His Word, the Bible – the living Word of God. That’s why I put it right up there at Number One. If numbers two to eight purport to be God speaking, then they’d better be consistent with Number One – the Word of God. If they aren’t then they’re not from God.

If someone claims to have had a dream or a vision or a prophecy but it contradicts the Word of God, make no mistake, that dream or vision or prophecy simply cannot be from God. God is not in the business of contradicting Himself. God is not in the business of changing His mind. But He is interested in our lives: in the nitty gritty of our lives and He knows that sometimes we need His specific guidance because He loves us. It stands to reason therefore that He’s going to speak specifically into our lives as any other father would. My Dad didn’t speak vague generalities into my life. My Dad spoke specifically into my life because He loved me.

I heard a pastor, a man that I respect a great deal, stand up and preach a sermon not too long ago in which basically He said, that God only speaks these days through His Word the Bible and through no other means. Well, the first thing is that’s simply not what the Bible says. Each of the other ways that God speaks to us that we’ve looked at numbers two through eight have come straight out of God’s Word. I haven’t made them up. They’re in the Bible.

So afterwards I went and asked this pastor a couple of questions. The first one was, “Why did you become an ordained minister in this church and this denomination?” His answer was, “Because I felt called.” And that is exactly the right answer. In fact, “it’s God calling” that’s the only right answer for a pastor of a church. So my second question was, “How did you discern that calling? How did you come to the conclusion that God was calling you specifically to this ministry?” And then he proceeded to tell me about this and that, all things that we’ve talked about in numbers 2-8: prophets, out of the blue, through the counsel of others, the different ways that God speaks.

It stands to reason that if we feel led by God to do this or to do that then we somehow must have heard Him speak that into our lives. And that’s what this series of messages have been all about. Going into God’s Word and learning from Him how it is that He chooses to communicate with us. But learning to discern His calling, learning to put the pieces together, sometimes it’s not easy.

Along the way I’ve made mistakes, or at least it appears that I’ve made mistakes. I thought God was calling me to this or to that so I headed down that path and it didn’t quite work out the way that I thought it should have worked out.

And when it comes to the big decisions of life, that’s a pretty scary prospect. What if we think we are hearing from God but we’re not, in choosing a wife or a husband, or in choosing a particular career or a ministry, or in heading overseas to some distant foreign land to become a missionary? You get the point.

I mean, I do believe that sometimes, oftentimes God’s leading leads us right into a wilderness experience when we’re expecting instant success. And that’s okay. I’m not bothered by that as surprised as we sometimes are, it doesn’t bother me. The issue simply uppermost for me is that if I’m going to head off in this direction or in that direction, then I want the direction that I head off in to be the one that God has chosen and ordained and prepared for me no matter what that direction holds. That’s all. Whatever way it is I just want to make sure I’m heading God’s way.

How do you discern God’s will amongst all the noise and distractions of life? A prophecy, a dream, a passage in the Bible that leaps out at you: are they from God? Before the days of global terrorism, as a frequent flyer I was often invited up into the cockpit of commercial jets to sit in the jump seat and watch a take off or a landing. They were the good old days.

One time, we were returning during the night to Sydney on a flight from New Zealand. I was in the cockpit of a Boeing 767 which actually gives you a great view out of the front windscreen, better than just about any other plane. And flying into Sydney, well it’s a pretty big city. There were so many lights. I was sitting in the jump seat wondering how are the pilots going to pick the runway?

All of a sudden we turned and the runway came into view, this bright straight row of lights. I mean you simply couldn’t miss it. All those lights in a row were clear and unmistakable and they showed the pilot in which direction to fly and how to land once they went off their instruments into visual mode.

And for me it’s the same in discerning God’s will. He speaks to us in different ways at different times: signs and wonders and this and that, and learning to understand Him is a process as it is in any relationship. But when I’m feeling Him leading me down a particular path, inevitably what happens he lines a few things up, just like those lights on the runway.

A Scripture verse that He sets on my heart and just won’t go away; a word, a prophecy from someone who has no idea what I’m thinking or dreaming; some other event – that door over there that closed unexpectedly but over here this other door opened to my surprise and all of a sudden, it’s like those lights lining up on the runway. They end up in a bit of a straight line, likes ducks in a row that point in a certain direction. And sometimes you can’t see them until you start heading down the path, in fact mostly in my experience that’s the case.

First we have to step out in faith, often letting go of the past first before God reveals what comes next. That’s why it’s called stepping out in faith. But time and time again I’ve seen God line up the little ducks in a row and when I see that I start heading down the path prayerfully, eyes open, asking God to open doors if it’s His will and closing doors if it’s not.

Sometimes there’s opposition and that’s where the faith comes in. But above all I always remember this, my God is faithful, he knows my heart; He will not lead me down a path that He doesn’t want me to follow. It’s just how He is. And whilst I’ve groaned at the occasional dead end along the way, as I look back over the last decade and half walking with Jesus I can see how He’s guided me to where He wants me to be.