Could it Be True?

"Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word... He that is of God heareth God's words..." (John 8:43 & 47a) KJVIn John 8:43 & 47a, Jesus speaks these words to the Pharisees, who were accosting him:"Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word... He that is of God heareth God's words..." Jesus is saying that we who are of God are to hear and understand God speaking to us, and when we do, obviously we are to respond by speaking back to him. God wants us to converse with him.

But that is hard to believe, isn't it. I am one of 6 billion people on this earth, and could it be true that Almighty God wants to talk to me, and me to talk to him? I mean do these scriptures actually mean that I can talk to God Almighty just as easily as I can talk to you, and that I can hear him talking to me just as easily as I can hear you? And if I really believed that this is its meaning, wouldn't I be conversing back and forth with him all the time?

That this is indeed what it means is made abundantly and unmistakably clear throughout the Old and New Testaments, with innumerable examples of just exactly this happening over and over again. Indeed, in the Book of Psalms, David is constantly talking with God, and it is very apparent that God responds. It cannot be misunderstood, that God intends and expects us to converse with him. He is talking to us all the time, if we only have ears to hear his voice, and eyes to see his glorious presence all around us. But we must have our spiritual ears open and listening, and our spiritual eyes open and looking, or we will hear and see nothing.

In the latter part of the 1960's, around 1967 or 1968, I was going through a difficult time, both in my work and in our marriage. I was floundering, with no idea of what I was to do in either situation to get out of the quagmire in which I found myself stuck. I used to get to my office in New York City from our home in Connecticut at about 8 o'clock in the morning; and I started dropping in at St. Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue, which was right across the street from our office building. There was a little chapel towards the front of the church, and off to the left, and there almost never was anyone in there, so I could be by myself. It was in this little chapel that I made an amazing discovery.

I found that I could ask God a question out loud, with no idea what the answer to that question might be, and he would answer my question audibly, using my own voice through my own mouth to instruct, inform, encourage, and correct me Actually, it didn't seem so amazing at the time, it almost seemed natural, and I engaged in this practice every workday for several months, until things gradually got straightened out. It was only later, in hindsight, that I realized what a remarkable gift this was. I have tried many times to recapture it, but apparently it was given for that time only, to help me in that particular situation. What an amazing Lord we serve!

But that was 35 long years ago. What about more recently? Well, in the last 35 years, I have experienced many miracles of God, including a resurrection from death when I had a heart attack in 1989, at which time my heart and all vital life signs ceased for a full five minutes, before I came back to life - with no brain damage, and only minimal heart damage. In view of that, and of many other acts of God in my life, less dramatic, it's true, but no less miraculous, you would think that I would never waver in my faith nor wander from his side again.

I wish I could tell you that that is what has happened, but unfortunately that has not been the case. Our self nature does not shrivel up and die that easily or quickly. Just as we must grow gradually into the supernatural life God wants us to have, by feeding and nourishing it through the daily decisions we make, so also we must gradually put our self life to death by starving it and refusing to give it life, through those same daily decisions.

Two or three years ago, my prayer life and bible study had gotten dry, and I was spending a minimal amount of time talking to the Lord and listening for him. The earlier excitement had pretty much gone out of my life, and I was feeling tired and old. Although I did not realize it at the time, spiritually, and probably physically as well, I was slowly dying. One day, I and three of my contemporaries, all of us in our middle-to-late 70's, got talking about our spiritual lives, and we came to realize that we all felt pretty much the same way, as though we had gotten stranded on a plateau, and that we weren't really moving ahead anymore. We decided that there had to be more to the Christian walk than what we had experienced, much more, and that God would reveal it to us, if we would only ask and seek with all our heart. We agreed to do that, and to start meeting for supper together one night a week, as a top-priority commitment, to help and encourage each other along the way, and he has not disappointed us.

God took us at our word, and since that time, each of us has become much more aware of Jesus' presence in our lives, of his faithfulness, of his guidance, of his revelation, of his encouragement and reproof, and of his unlimited forgiveness, mercy, and love. He speaks to us in all of these areas, and many others, through our prayer and journaling, through each other, and through our daily experiences. However, I would emphasize, and reemphasize, that, while all three of these activities are important, to me the most important has been the prayer and journaling. For me, that is the key that opened the door to new spiritual life.

Please understand that we are by no means constant in our awareness of the Lord, and in our conversing with him; but that in no way changes the fact that he is constantly aware of us, and always speaking to us, whether we hear him or not. We still have a long way to go, and we will never actually arrive at the end of the journey until that glorious day when we will hear and see and know him, as he hears and sees and knows us. But meanwhile, we are listening and looking much more than before, and we are hearing and seeing and experiencing much beyond what we had previously known. We are learning a lot, and life is exciting again.

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Contributed by Stephen B. Elmer
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