A Voice from Above

My husband and I were flying "home" to Georgia from Texas, where he was in seminary at the time. About half-way through the flight, bored and restless, one of us decided it would be worth the fifteen dollars or so to call someone down below from the telephone attached to the back of the seat in front of us. 

James swiped our only credit card and we dialed my parents, who were probably about to leave the house to head for the airport...to pick us up. When my mom answered the phone, we said something goofy, like, "Hey! We're on our way! We're in the air!"

Yipee!

I'm sure my frugal parents were wondering what in the world had gotten into us. But, hey, they got to hear from someone in the sky. Surely that was worth the swipe of our credit card!

Sometimes I long to hear a voice from the heavens. Not the voice of someone on an airplane, mind you, but the voice of God. 

I envy the Old Testament saints who had the opportunity to hear audibly the instructions from on High.

"Then the Lord said to Noah, 'Enter the ark, you and your household...'" (Genesis 7:1)

"Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go forth from your country...'" (Genesis 12:1)

"And the Lord said to {Rebekah}, 'Two nations are in your womb...'" (Genesis 25:23)

"And the Lord appeared to {Isaac} the same night and said, 'I am the God of your father Abraham...'" (Genesis 26:24)

"God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, 'Moses, Moses!'" (Exodus 3:4)

Then again, I'd probably be scared out of my wit if I actually heard the voice of God through the air waves of my little space on this earth. Imagine.

But even if we don't hear God's voice audibly, we can "hear" Him. He speaks to us. 

What does it look like when God speaks to us?

In the book of Nehemiah we see two practical and beautiful pictures of what it can look like in our lives when God "speaks" to us.

In both Nehemiah 2:12 and later in Nehemiah 7:5, this man mentions that God has "put into my heart" to do something specific for the Lord. God had spoken and Nehemiah knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the burning, yearning in his heart was from the Lord. 

Now Nehemiah spoke to God often, but never once do we see evidence in the book of Nehemiah that this servant-leader ever heard an audible word from the God he prayed to. Yet we would all agree, by the time we finish reading this powerful narrative, that God had definitely "spoken" to Nehemiah.

How do you get to "hear" from God the way Nehemiah did? The answer is found in two verses in Proverbs that share some of the same Hebrew words used in these two pivotal passages in Nehemiah.

In Proverbs 2:6 we learn that it is the Lord who gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. And Proverbs 3:6 tells us that if we will give him the floor, incline our ear to what He has to say, then He will direct our paths and show us which way to go.

Hearing from God simply requires we listen...actively...with humble, ready-to-hear-and-respond hearts.

The key to hearing from the heavenlies? You don't need a cell phone or radio. You simply need to:

• seek to understand your world and your circumstances from God's point of view.

• allow the Lord to speak into your life, give Him the floor.

Are you choosing to listen to God today? What has He put on your heart recently? Have you responded with obedience? The more you respond, the more He'll speak.