When God SAYS Something

The word “Gospel” simply means “good news”. The good news of Christianity is that the God we betrayed back in Genesis no longer sees us as a bit of offal he cannot abide having around. He, not us, has found a way to restore friendship and communication between us.
That is the meaning behind the song the angels sang on Christmas Eve—peace on Earth and good will to men. That is the meaning of the Easter Holiday when Christ is sacrificed himself to pay for our treachery (Think Aslan, again). He then rises to proclaim the debt is paid, that our enemy into whose slavery we sold ourselves is defeated, and that we can live again.
When we accept this, God is ready to listen to us again. He is willing to answer us—to talk back to us. We, however, must be prepared to listen. We must also be prepared to accept something that on first hearing may sound a whole lot spooky.
It always fascinates me that many people who will spend hours on the Science Fiction Channel, who will buy their children the complete Harry Potter series, who love Star Trek and Star Wars, who watch “Ghost Hunters”, who just live for the next “horror” movie, and who are absolutely sure aliens landed at Area 51 in Roswell, New Mexico reject anything in Christianity that sounds the least bit supernatural.
If as many hours had been spent on finding a cure for cancer and AIDs as have been spent on disproving anything out of the natural in the Bible, those diseases would be like Small Pox today. Christianity reserves its right to be supernatural—it claims to worship a most supernatural God.
He, in turn, reserves the right to both speak and act in the natural AND the supernatural. Judeo-Christianity has a rock that follows Israel through the desert and spews water as needed. It has metal axes that float, blind men who can suddenly see, deaf people who can hear, lame people who jump up and down, dead men who stand up and walk.
Christ offers as his credentials to his cousin, John the Baptist, the fact that lame walk, dumb speak and blind see and, just incidentally, the fact that the Good News is preached to the poor. He didn’t come to judge—he came to tell us that God has found a way to restore our relationship.
So, how do we hear God through the cacophony of temporal worries and fears, the static of an enemy who will do anything to keep us from listening to God? (The “devil”—the accuser; the prosecuting attorney charging us—the liar and deceiver who tricks us into hurting ourselves and each other—is another nice bit of Christian supernaturalism.
We cannot get away with blaming him for our poor choices [“The Devil made me do it”}; he merely is able to suggest. We always have the ability to say no. His chief skill is that he makes evil sound so good, so useful, so fun, or so necessary that we choose to think we have no other choice.)
We’d prefer not to think about that; it’s much too spooky. But it is his voice and his suggestions that often drown out the true vox Dei. We must tell him to go away, to Shut Up, before we can hear the “still, small voice of God”. We literally must do that to hear God.
“Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” we are promised. So resist. Tell him to take his ideas, his worries and fears, his urgencies and his concerns out of your head. This will help you to hear much, much better. You will need help to do this.
That involves one more spooky thing—before he left earth to return to his heavenly throne, Christ promised that we would be sent a “comforter”, someone to lead us into all truth. That, of course, is the Holy Spirit, the Third Person the kid from Notre Dame invokes before he shoots a free throw—The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.
Having destroyed our natural “receivers” during chapters 3-11 of Genesis, the Holy Spirit becomes the new way of hearing and reaching God. He prays for us. He interprets to God what we really mean and should be saying. He interprets God back to us.
All he asks is that we believe (specifically that we believe he is here to help us), that we are not hanging onto a pet sin or nasty impulse that offends God (and man), that we have forgiven and, thus, been forgiven, that we love and accept the fact that he loves us, and that we are quiet and patient.
That’s all.
Sometimes he will speak through a passage in the Bible. I myself have had a question answered that way. (Once, a question about American history of all things.) Sometimes you will feel a “knowing”—knowing that this is what he wants you to do. An idea or a new thought will come to you.
If it does not violate morality or Godliness, such an impulse comes from the Holy Spirit (check to be sure whose voice is speaking—the enemy is always hovering, waiting to pick off a pass if you let him). Wait, then, do you feel an inner sense of quiet and peace about what is being suggested?
That inner sense of peace ALWAYS comes with the voice of God. You are free to quote scripture to God—he likes to be reminded of the promises he has made. Find a verse that backs up what you want (a useful check against greed and covetousness).
He promises that if you ask for wisdom you will surely be given it. Wisdom alone can make a lot of answers clear. He also reminds you that “You have not because you ask not” and he warns that you can ask and not receive because you ask for wrong things. Out of greed or lust or hatred. These will not get you an answer.
There’s a right way to ask. If you ask out of greed or if you doubt while you ask, “you must not expect to receive anything”. Rules, caveats and exceptions. You can’t just sit down and ask for a yacht or a Rolls Royce. Just as you wouldn’t let your young child play with a sharp knife, he won’t give you something he knows would be ultimately harmful to you. (Or cause you to forget him.)
He loves us, but he doesn’t have a high degree of respect for our maturity. (A vast number of recent mortgage agreements in this country would not have been signed if the borrowers—or lenders—had talked to God first. Such trouble we can get into when we fail to ask for wisdom or to check greed.)
That’s how you begin to talk to God. As with any friendship, it gets deeper and easier as you move on in the relationship. It becomes like a long married couple who can almost automatically finish each other’s sentences. The knowing is that deep. Communication is restored.
One or two more points to be dealt with later … .