Session 2 -- Learning to Dialogue with God
Last time we talked about the fact that most prayers are really only way one – us talking at God. There is usually no attempt made on our part to listen to him.
I think one of the most difficult things for us to do is to learn to hear God’s voice. If the truth be known, most of us just give up on the whole thing and continue our monologue when we pray. Personally, I think there are two dynamics going on that we are not aware of.
1. No one has ever taught us what God’s voice sounds like, so we don’t recognize it when we hear it. Let me give you an example from 1 Sam. 3:1-10.
The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.
Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
So here we have Samuel hearing the voice of God, but not realizing it was God. That leads us to my second dynamic.
2. We do not hear God’s voice because our spiritual ears are not tuned to hear him.
Let me explain. Passing through this room are all the electromagnetic signals that are used to deliver the content on our cell phones, our radios, many of our TV’s, and even some for our computers. So why can’t we discern them? If we can’t discern them, does it mean they don’t exist? Radio and telecommunications people what say you were silly to say the signals don’t exist.
Here’s what I’m trying to say. God is speaking to us all the time. We just haven’t tuned our ears, hearts, and minds to hear his voice.
So that’s what I want us to spend our time on this evening. The only way we can end this monologue thing that we mistakenly call prayer, is to learn to hear God’s voice. A year or so ago, we came upon a teaching by a man named Mark Virkler. What he taught was very practical and I found it to be a very useful tool to help me tune to God’s voice. I’d like to share his teaching with you this evening.
Mark’s teaching springs from a couple of verses in the Old Testament. So let’s read that.
Habbakuk 2:1-2 -- I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
Stillness -- Quiet yourself in the Lord’s presence. Last session we talked about getting rid of a lot of the old rituals that we use in prayer. We could see how they might have been profitable in the beginning, but became impediments to effective prayer as we matured. So, today I want to introduce you to some new scaffolding to learn to hear God’s voice. But remember, it is only scaffolding. Once the building is erected, we do not leave the scaffolding in place.
We read in Psa. 46:10 -- He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
If we are not accustomed to hearing God’s voice, this is one of the first things we have to do. Why is this? Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language? My daughter-in-law was born in Vietnam and speaks the Vietnamese language every bit as well as English. When she tries to teach someone to say something in Viet, the nuances of the language, the inflections, the subtle speech phonetics, just are not obvious to us who speak English. To learn to say something correctly takes concentration. You have to block everything else out and listen very carefully.
So too, if we are not accustomed to hearing God’s voice, we will have to spend some time alone in solitude, listening very carefully.
This is not transcendental meditation or opening oneself to spiritual darkness. If you come to God and ask him to speak to you, do you believe he is going to let the demons crowd in? That makes no sense. Heb. 11:6 – “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Does he reward us with a visit from Satan? Of course not. Luke 11:11-12 – “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”
Vision – Fixing your eyes on Jesus. It isn’t enough to become still and empty our minds of all the distractions. That would be Transcendental Meditation or some of the other mystical spiritual exercises. We must also focus on Jesus.
In Heb. 12:1-2, we read,
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
This passage should take on new meaning for us. The entire import of this passage is FOCUS. Focus on those who are watching the event from another dimension. Get rid of everything that distracts – sin, money, power, stuff, the responsibilities and duties of the day, the endless demands from the kids, the debilitating stress from the job, all of that. Most of all, focus on Jesus!
This idea of “seeing” ourselves with Jesus is important. Have you ever imagined yourself standing with Jesus, talking to him, interacting with him, laughing with him? It is important to visualize yourself with him. Acts 2:17 -- “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” Have you ever thought about that in terms of your time with God in prayer?
The book called “The Shack” does a great job of helping us to see God – to visualize him. The author captured all kinds of ideas about the three persons of the Trinity and flings them out to us in a way that we can understand and identify with. On this journey to hear God speak, I would encourage you to read the book, as it will really help you in this area of visualizing yourself with him. We read in Eph. 1:17-18,
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,
Did you know that our hearts have eyes? It’s right there in Eph. 1. It’s okay to let your imagination flower when you are focusing on Jesus. Who knows what visions God may decide to impart to you.
If you are reading your Bible, put yourself in the story. Personalize it. Imagine that you are Zaccheus, the hated tax collector, vertically challenged, scurrying around in the crowd of towering people, trying to get a glimpse of the latest celebrity, Jesus of Nazareth. Imagine yourself spying a tree that is easy to climb and has great overarching branches over the road. So you run quickly to it in advance of the mob, scramble up, nearly falling once or twice, until you find the perfect perch. You can even pick Jesus out in the advancing horde of robes, sandals, and dust. Then as he passes under the tree, he suddenly stops, and looks up, right into your eyes. Can you imagine that?
If you will do this when reading Scripture, you will begin to more easily focus on Jesus. Godly imagination can then transition into a vision. Vision permeates the Bible.
Spontaneity – Tuning to spontaneity. “God’s voice sounds like a spontaneous thought that lights upon your mind.” – Mark Virkler
Have you ever come to the end of your ability to solve a problem, finally gave up, prayed, and suddenly a brilliant thought came to your mind and you found the solution? This is a spontaneous thought that lit upon your mind. It was from God.
Sometimes you pray and pray, and suddenly something that you hear on a talk show, a reality show, a movie, something you read in a newspaper, something that a friend says, something that you’ve read a thousand times from the Bible, suddenly stands out like a neon sign. Again this is from God.
John 7:37-39 -- On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Tune to flowing thoughts. So as you pray, stop talking and start listening. What are the thoughts going through your mind? As you focus on Jesus, what is he saying to you?
As I have sat down to prepare for this teaching, there is a river of thoughts flowing through my mind. And the Holy Spirit fills my mind with his thoughts. This is the way it is meant to be. His life flowing through us. His thoughts lighting upon our minds. His spiritual blood coursing through our veins.
Journaling – Writing The last part of the verse we began with in Habbakuk says, Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
So the final piece of the puzzle is to journal. As these thoughts light upon your mind, right them down.
Eccl. 5:1-2. – Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
The next time you pray, shut up and let God do most of the talking. Just decide in your mind that you will make this transition. Just decide that for one week, you will not make any requests of God. Don’t even beg him to speak to you. Just listen. And as you listen, write it all down. Don’t pass judgment on the thoughts as they come and make choices about what to transcribe, just write it down. You have plenty of time later to decide what was from God and what was just your own mind coming up with stuff.
Do this with faith and expectancy. I mean this wholeheartedly. You will get what you expect. Heb. 11:6 – “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” If you think you will get nothing from God, that’s what you’ll get.
“Journaling is a tool that lets you stay in faith for an extended period of time knowing that you can test it later.” – Mark Virkler
Testing Your Dialogue
Now some of you may be thinking, this smells like New Age stuff. But it’s not. New Age is a counterfeit for the real thing. We always test it with the Bible.
First of all we ask, “Is this compatible with the Word of God?” We do not ask, “Is this in the Bible?” It has to be compatible with the Bible, not necessarily “in it.” Is Sunday School in the Bible? Is Public School in the Bible? Is the word “trinity” in the Bible? No! Compatibility with the body of Scripture is the key.
So, here are five things to keep you safe.
1. You’re a born-again Christian.
2. Accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.
3. Read the Bible – do this before trying to hear God’s voice. Read the entire New Testament first.
4. Have an attitude of submission to what God is teaching you from the Bible.
5. Have 2 or 3 advisors you go to on a regular basis that you relate to.
There are so many stories in the Bible that make no sense from an intellectual standpoint. If we judged the instructions given to Gideon by God on an intellectual, logical point of view, we’d have told him that his ideas about battle strategy were complete foolishness. It made no sense to cull his army down to 300 men who would stand on the ridges breaking pots and blowing trumpets.
I think one of the most difficult things for us to do is to learn to hear God’s voice. If the truth be known, most of us just give up on the whole thing and continue our monologue when we pray. Personally, I think there are two dynamics going on that we are not aware of.
1. No one has ever taught us what God’s voice sounds like, so we don’t recognize it when we hear it. Let me give you an example from 1 Sam. 3:1-10.
The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.
Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
So here we have Samuel hearing the voice of God, but not realizing it was God. That leads us to my second dynamic.
2. We do not hear God’s voice because our spiritual ears are not tuned to hear him.
Let me explain. Passing through this room are all the electromagnetic signals that are used to deliver the content on our cell phones, our radios, many of our TV’s, and even some for our computers. So why can’t we discern them? If we can’t discern them, does it mean they don’t exist? Radio and telecommunications people what say you were silly to say the signals don’t exist.
Here’s what I’m trying to say. God is speaking to us all the time. We just haven’t tuned our ears, hearts, and minds to hear his voice.
So that’s what I want us to spend our time on this evening. The only way we can end this monologue thing that we mistakenly call prayer, is to learn to hear God’s voice. A year or so ago, we came upon a teaching by a man named Mark Virkler. What he taught was very practical and I found it to be a very useful tool to help me tune to God’s voice. I’d like to share his teaching with you this evening.
Mark’s teaching springs from a couple of verses in the Old Testament. So let’s read that.
Habbakuk 2:1-2 -- I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
Stillness -- Quiet yourself in the Lord’s presence. Last session we talked about getting rid of a lot of the old rituals that we use in prayer. We could see how they might have been profitable in the beginning, but became impediments to effective prayer as we matured. So, today I want to introduce you to some new scaffolding to learn to hear God’s voice. But remember, it is only scaffolding. Once the building is erected, we do not leave the scaffolding in place.
We read in Psa. 46:10 -- He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
If we are not accustomed to hearing God’s voice, this is one of the first things we have to do. Why is this? Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language? My daughter-in-law was born in Vietnam and speaks the Vietnamese language every bit as well as English. When she tries to teach someone to say something in Viet, the nuances of the language, the inflections, the subtle speech phonetics, just are not obvious to us who speak English. To learn to say something correctly takes concentration. You have to block everything else out and listen very carefully.
So too, if we are not accustomed to hearing God’s voice, we will have to spend some time alone in solitude, listening very carefully.
This is not transcendental meditation or opening oneself to spiritual darkness. If you come to God and ask him to speak to you, do you believe he is going to let the demons crowd in? That makes no sense. Heb. 11:6 – “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Does he reward us with a visit from Satan? Of course not. Luke 11:11-12 – “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”
Vision – Fixing your eyes on Jesus. It isn’t enough to become still and empty our minds of all the distractions. That would be Transcendental Meditation or some of the other mystical spiritual exercises. We must also focus on Jesus.
In Heb. 12:1-2, we read,
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
This passage should take on new meaning for us. The entire import of this passage is FOCUS. Focus on those who are watching the event from another dimension. Get rid of everything that distracts – sin, money, power, stuff, the responsibilities and duties of the day, the endless demands from the kids, the debilitating stress from the job, all of that. Most of all, focus on Jesus!
This idea of “seeing” ourselves with Jesus is important. Have you ever imagined yourself standing with Jesus, talking to him, interacting with him, laughing with him? It is important to visualize yourself with him. Acts 2:17 -- “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” Have you ever thought about that in terms of your time with God in prayer?
The book called “The Shack” does a great job of helping us to see God – to visualize him. The author captured all kinds of ideas about the three persons of the Trinity and flings them out to us in a way that we can understand and identify with. On this journey to hear God speak, I would encourage you to read the book, as it will really help you in this area of visualizing yourself with him. We read in Eph. 1:17-18,
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,
Did you know that our hearts have eyes? It’s right there in Eph. 1. It’s okay to let your imagination flower when you are focusing on Jesus. Who knows what visions God may decide to impart to you.
If you are reading your Bible, put yourself in the story. Personalize it. Imagine that you are Zaccheus, the hated tax collector, vertically challenged, scurrying around in the crowd of towering people, trying to get a glimpse of the latest celebrity, Jesus of Nazareth. Imagine yourself spying a tree that is easy to climb and has great overarching branches over the road. So you run quickly to it in advance of the mob, scramble up, nearly falling once or twice, until you find the perfect perch. You can even pick Jesus out in the advancing horde of robes, sandals, and dust. Then as he passes under the tree, he suddenly stops, and looks up, right into your eyes. Can you imagine that?
If you will do this when reading Scripture, you will begin to more easily focus on Jesus. Godly imagination can then transition into a vision. Vision permeates the Bible.
Spontaneity – Tuning to spontaneity. “God’s voice sounds like a spontaneous thought that lights upon your mind.” – Mark Virkler
Have you ever come to the end of your ability to solve a problem, finally gave up, prayed, and suddenly a brilliant thought came to your mind and you found the solution? This is a spontaneous thought that lit upon your mind. It was from God.
Sometimes you pray and pray, and suddenly something that you hear on a talk show, a reality show, a movie, something you read in a newspaper, something that a friend says, something that you’ve read a thousand times from the Bible, suddenly stands out like a neon sign. Again this is from God.
John 7:37-39 -- On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Tune to flowing thoughts. So as you pray, stop talking and start listening. What are the thoughts going through your mind? As you focus on Jesus, what is he saying to you?
As I have sat down to prepare for this teaching, there is a river of thoughts flowing through my mind. And the Holy Spirit fills my mind with his thoughts. This is the way it is meant to be. His life flowing through us. His thoughts lighting upon our minds. His spiritual blood coursing through our veins.
Journaling – Writing The last part of the verse we began with in Habbakuk says, Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
So the final piece of the puzzle is to journal. As these thoughts light upon your mind, right them down.
Eccl. 5:1-2. – Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
The next time you pray, shut up and let God do most of the talking. Just decide in your mind that you will make this transition. Just decide that for one week, you will not make any requests of God. Don’t even beg him to speak to you. Just listen. And as you listen, write it all down. Don’t pass judgment on the thoughts as they come and make choices about what to transcribe, just write it down. You have plenty of time later to decide what was from God and what was just your own mind coming up with stuff.
Do this with faith and expectancy. I mean this wholeheartedly. You will get what you expect. Heb. 11:6 – “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” If you think you will get nothing from God, that’s what you’ll get.
“Journaling is a tool that lets you stay in faith for an extended period of time knowing that you can test it later.” – Mark Virkler
Testing Your Dialogue
Now some of you may be thinking, this smells like New Age stuff. But it’s not. New Age is a counterfeit for the real thing. We always test it with the Bible.
First of all we ask, “Is this compatible with the Word of God?” We do not ask, “Is this in the Bible?” It has to be compatible with the Bible, not necessarily “in it.” Is Sunday School in the Bible? Is Public School in the Bible? Is the word “trinity” in the Bible? No! Compatibility with the body of Scripture is the key.
So, here are five things to keep you safe.
1. You’re a born-again Christian.
2. Accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.
3. Read the Bible – do this before trying to hear God’s voice. Read the entire New Testament first.
4. Have an attitude of submission to what God is teaching you from the Bible.
5. Have 2 or 3 advisors you go to on a regular basis that you relate to.
- Demons can also give you spontaneous thoughts.
- Do not ask others what they think. Ask them what their hearts tell them.
There are so many stories in the Bible that make no sense from an intellectual standpoint. If we judged the instructions given to Gideon by God on an intellectual, logical point of view, we’d have told him that his ideas about battle strategy were complete foolishness. It made no sense to cull his army down to 300 men who would stand on the ridges breaking pots and blowing trumpets.
Homework
This week I’d like you to practice this technique. It’s okay to start with your list of requests like most of us are prone to do. But this time instead of telling God what you want him to do about your wayward friend, just determine that you will say, “God, what do you want to tell me about ______.” Then pause and see what thoughts he places on your mind. Write down those thoughts.
After you’ve done this, then ask a trusted friend who knows God to read your journaling and tell you what his/her heart says about what you’ve written.
By the way, I know that many Christian couples struggle in being able to pray effectively together or worship God together. Using your spouse as a sounding board for your journaling can be a very effective way of breaking through to real spiritual oneness of heart.
So, try it this week and report back on what God does the next time we meet.
This week I’d like you to practice this technique. It’s okay to start with your list of requests like most of us are prone to do. But this time instead of telling God what you want him to do about your wayward friend, just determine that you will say, “God, what do you want to tell me about ______.” Then pause and see what thoughts he places on your mind. Write down those thoughts.
After you’ve done this, then ask a trusted friend who knows God to read your journaling and tell you what his/her heart says about what you’ve written.
By the way, I know that many Christian couples struggle in being able to pray effectively together or worship God together. Using your spouse as a sounding board for your journaling can be a very effective way of breaking through to real spiritual oneness of heart.
So, try it this week and report back on what God does the next time we meet.
