Everything You Need to Hear God Clearly

Our world is littered with gadgets and toys that are meant to "improve" our lives. With every passing year, new technology is released and distributed to the masses. Every technological advance made, a promise to make life easier is made alongside it. But we must ask ourselves this question. Has the technological revolution of the twenty-first-century delivered on its promise of an easier life?

Most of us are never truly disconnected from our devices. And why would we be? We have the world at our fingertips. In an instant, we can talk to a friend, go shopping, or even go on a virtual tour of the ancient pyramids. Technology has, without a doubt made things more convenient. That is the point; after all, technology is made to make life simpler for people. But one could argue that the overwhelming development of new tech has instead made life vastly more complicated.

All of our devices now have the ability to speak to us and each other. Even when we're alone, we are constantly on call. Whether we realize it or not, we are all waiting for the next buzz to come through. While this may seem like a small observation, it has significant implications. Our inability to disconnect has saturated our lives with white noise, and this is no coincidence. The enemy uses this white noise to muffle God's voice and decrease our ability to hear Him clearly. This isn't a new trick from the enemy. He has been using noise to his advantage from the beginning; technology is just his latest medium.

In the story of Elijah, we see where God speaks most clearly. God told Elijah to go up on the mountain to enter His presence. When Elijah arrived, a great and mighty wind arose, but God was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but God wasn't in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire, but God wasn't in the fire. After the fire, there was a still small voice, and that is where Elijah experienced God.

One would expect God to do something miraculous when He speaks, but more often than not, God chooses to whisper. God is always speaking, but we aren't always listening. Even when we do listen, however, many times, we are incapable of hearing God's voice because of all the noise we've allowed in our life. To hear God clearly, we must be very intentional about turning everything else off. When we eliminate the noise, open His Word, and enter his presence, we set ourselves up to hear God speak. The enemy will attempt to throw more noise our way when we become intentional, but if we choose to listen, we too can hear that still small voice.

An Unexpected Voice at an Unexpected Time

God has a history of using people no one else wanted. David was the youngest of his brothers, the twelve disciples were mostly outcasts, and Paul was in the middle of persecuting Christians when God picked him to spread the good news. God uses some of the least qualified people to do some of the most miraculous things. Why? Because God likes proving that He is God. When God does the unexpected with the unexpected, He gets all the glory.

In the book of Judges, God’s people continuously turn their backs on Him and fall under enemy oppression. Once they had enough, they would smarten up and cry out to God for help. Then God would raise a judge to deliver the nation once again. And one time, he did it in a way no one could deny the presence and power of God at work. God picked Gideon, the youngest of his family in the lowest tribe of Israel. He was a man no one would have chosen to be a judge, but God had a special plan for him. Gideon was hiding from the enemy when he heard an unexpected voice. It was an angel, giving him an unexpected word from God. The angel said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

God called Gideon to rescue the nation of Israel from their oppressor, but Gideon questioned his call. He questioned his call because he didn’t see himself as a warrior or a “mighty man of God.” Surely there were more qualified people God could choose, but God called him so He could get the glory. Once Gideon accepted his calling, he gathered an army of 32,000 men. But once again, God did the unexpected. God told Gideon that his army was too large. An army of that size could claim victory by their own power, but God wanted all the credit. Through a series of questions and tests, Gideon’s army was whittled down to 300 men.

Gideon trusted God and went into a battle outnumbered by over 100,000. But God’s presence had gone before them and thrown fear into the Midianite camp. When Gideon’s army announced themselves, the camp went into utter chaos. The soldiers turned on each other, and some tried to escape, only to be tracked down and killed. Gideon and his army of 300 defeated the Midianites and released Israel from their oppression, but they didn’t get the credit. God received all the glory because He did it in an unexpected way.

The bottom line is not whether you are qualified; it is whether you will accept your call. Gideon wasn’t expecting his call, and he certainly didn’t expect it to happen the way it did, but he answered the call. Our mission may be different than Gideon’s, but God is calling all of us to something. What He said to Gideon, He says to you, “Go in the strength you have, I am sending you. I will be with you.” You may not expect this calling, but God is calling out to you. The question is, will you answer Him?

So You’ve Failed, What Can You Do Now?

“Maybe it’s easier to lie to the world than, to be honest with yourself,” is a line used by a fictitious speechwriter in the show Designated Survivor. While this line comes from a fictional world, its truth bleeds over into ours. We tend to struggle to be honest, especially with ourselves. Take a look at our social media profiles. How accurately do our profiles portray our real lives? Most people use social media as a highlight reel for their success, ignoring failures altogether. We ignore these failures because it’s hard to accept them. Failure brings feelings of shame and disappointment to the surface, something no one actively wishes for. But there’s a problem that arises when we aren’t honest with ourselves. Neglecting the reflection of our inevitable failure leads us to accept a false sense of reality. Accepting failure is hard. However, the only real failure in life is the failure to accept our misdoings. Admitting a shortcoming is the first step. Once that is done, we pave the way for God to work through that very failure.

There are several differences between the Bible and social media, but one of these is the fact that the failures and shortcomings of the characters in the Bible are not hidden. Failures are highlighted just as much as successes are. Failures like David and Bathsheba and Peter’s denial of Jesus are written plainly for us all to see and evaluate. I’m sure if David and Peter had it their way, they would have omitted these accounts to preserve their reputation. However, God made sure that these accounts were included. Which leads us to the question of why? Why does God want us to reflect on our failures? I believe the answer is we grow more through failure than we do success.

I think one of the greatest examples of this comes in the life of Moses. We know Moses best for getting the Israelites out of Egypt, splitting the Red Sea, and leading his people in the wilderness. But Moses had a catastrophic failure before any of this success. Moses killed an Egyptian man trying to protect one of his fellow Hebrew. The Bible not only highlights this failure by Moses, but it shows us that Moses had to accept his failure. Being led by the fear for his life, Moses fled to the wilderness and spent the next 40 years of his life being a shepherd. He went from living in the palace to living with the sheep because of one mistake.

Moses had a good heart with good intentions, he wanted to save his people from oppression, but he went about it the wrong way. He took the situation into his own hands instead of trusting God to be an agent for His will. Moses let pride creep into his life, and that led to his failure. You see, Moses’s failure wasn’t a result of him not being called, but it resulted from him not being ready. We aren’t given many details about Moses’s time in the wilderness, but we know that it was a humbling experience for him. Numbers 12:3 says that “Moses was a very humble man, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.” Quite the turn around from the prideful attitude of his earlier years. I believe Moses was always called to lead God’s people out of Egypt. He tried to act on this call early on, but he wasn’t ready. God still needed to shape and form him into the leader; he would need to be for the whole mission. Moses used his 40 years in the wilderness to be molded by God to become the man God intended him to be.

So next time you fail, let God use that situation for good. Know that you are called beyond your current ability. God may need you to spend some time with Him in the wilderness before you can carry out your call. Don’t run from this experience; embrace it.