God Speaks, Calling

The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. 

Psalm 50:1

An Exercise for You

A couple of weeks ago, Dianne shared A Personal Psalm and I shared Words in My Heart.  We had been at a retreat where we were given an interesting exercise to invite God to inspire us to write a psalm or song of praise to Him. After this exercise we got back together as a group and shared our songs or psalms with each other. 

As each person shared, their words were accompanied with surprisingly deep emotion. These weren't just pretty poems, but were heart-felt expressions born out of a profound encounter with God during this exercise. As we looked at what we had written, a good number of us felt that what we had written went beyond our own thoughts or writing skills. God had met us personally and was speaking to our hearts as we wrote. Beautiful experience in the end, but a bit intimidating when we heard that this was to be our assignment!

What do you think? Do you want to give this a try this week? God has inspired many a human pen throughout history. He can inspire you to write a song/poem/psalm too. 

I'm often encouraged by the story of Balaam and his donkey and how God opened the mouth of the donkey to speak to his master.  I figure if God can get a donkey to speak, He certainly can move me to do what He wants me to do! The question is, "Am I willing to let Him move me?"

Father, I pray that you would make an opportunity possible for those who read this post to write a song or poem or personal psalm expressing their hearts. May it be a sweet time with You. May this exercise be something that draws them deeper in love with You. I ask this for Your Glory.

(If you're willing, it would be cool if you'd share what you wrote as a comment below. You can do it "anonymous" if you prefer.)

Words in my Heart

I've walked this path with You before

     many years ago

the stream retells the Words 

     You spoke to me

Those weren't my imaginings 

     no shades of doubt 

I stand remembering and see 

    Your faithfulness 

Words that are true

 touching my heart 

       so deep

Words that are sure

 freeing my heart 

     changed me

So I turn my face to Yours

 and listen again 

 for You speak

God speaks in many ways

Last night I dreamed again of the dream I had the night before. As I was sleeping, I was exploring the meaning of the dream I had the previous night. The best way I can explain this is that in my dream I was interacting with God about my dream and He was unfolding what it meant. Very interesting!

I have learned to recognize dreams as a way in which God talks to me. Most often the imagery that is projected on the underside of my eyelids is not to be interpreted literally. Rather, it is symbolic language...a puzzle to be solved...with word play... association. It causes me to ask questions of God and dialogue further with Him about what He wants me to get; what He wants me to understand.

Why wouldn't He just plainly come out and say whatever He wants to say? Well... we have a way of believing what we believe and forming a world view that runs so deep that we see everything through the lenses of our world view. Sometimes our way of seeing things - the way we evaluate life or situations - needs to be challenged because it simply isn't the way that God sees it, and it's not the way that He wants us to view things either. So God, intricately knowing us - our upbringing, culture, education, personalities, past experiences - captures our attention with sometimes very bizarre dreams that we just can't seem to shake and continue to ponder. Often these dreams occur repeatedly with slight variations but seemingly the same theme. These are the dreams that I take to God. We work through them together... and I often also ask for the godly wisdom of friends/family.

In Acts chapter 10 we read the story of how God speaks to Cornelius and how He speaks to Peter. With Cornelius, God speaks plainly with specific details. The message is clear...no symbolic language here. With Peter though, the vision God gave to Peter probably felt to him like a nightmare considering the Jewish law and culture that Peter lived in and loved. Let's look at this story and see how God got through to Peter. Peter needed a new world view so he could freely follow God in the calling God had for him.

Click on the link below. (This saves me typing out the whole chapter and also introduces you to the Bible Gateway web site I like to use when writing a post.)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=51&chapter=10&version=31

Father, open our hearts and minds to hear You as You speak. We hear Your voice as we delight in the beautiful creation You have made for us, we hear You through Your Word, we hear Your voice through those who love You, through music and art... so many ways in which You speak. May we learn to trust You to even speak through dreams and visions, for You are completely faithful and trustworthy and give good gifts to your children.