Tag Archives: still small voice

October 30, 2024 · 5:40 AM

Wilderness Seasons

Some of the toughest seasons in life to get through are wilderness seasons. They’re brought on by different things that happen in our life. Sometimes we enter them shell shocked after our world has been rocked. You can’t really feel Godwin the wilderness, but you know He’s there. I’ve found myself simply going through the motions. I stand during worship, but words won’t come out. I hear the message, but nothing seems to resonate. I smile and shake hands, but feel disconnected. I try to pray, but my words fall flat. There’s no telling how long the season will last, but I’ve found that wilderness seasons are usually followed up by victory seasons.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah had just called fire from heaven and proved God’s existence to the nation when Jezebel threatened his life. Verse 4 says, “Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die” (NLT). He fell asleep there from his depression, but was awakened by an angel who fed him. He laid back down and slept again until the angel did the same thing again. He then traveled forty days and nights deeper into the wilderness where he found a cave on Mount Sinai. God spoke and asked him what he was doing there. He needed to hear from God and know His power. He experienced an earthquake, a fire and a still, small voice. God sent him back into the wilderness with instructions to anoint a new king and to appoint a successor. In that moment, God took care of the future and his present. Some of his greatest miracles are in the chapters that follow.

Deuteronomy 2:7 says, “For the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the Lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.” God never leaves us in wilderness seasons, and He provides for us while we’re there. I’ve learned that these seasons, while tough, have produced deeper roots in my faith. They caused me to dig down deep into God’s Word, to seek His presence and to depend on Him. I couldn’t always see Him in my wanderings in the wilderness, but when I look back, I see He never left my side. If you’re there now, keep being desperate for God to answer. It may not be big and grandiose like you want. It’s often in the still, small voice and in subtle ways. God has a purpose for wilderness seasons. Don’t rush through them. A victorious season is just ahead.

Photo by Monica Valls on Unsplash

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 11, 2023 · 5:43 AM

Water In The Wilderness

When I was young, I loved the poem “Footprints In The Sand”. It tells of a person looking back on their life and seeing two sets of footprints. In the hardest times, there was only one set in the sand. They questioned why the Lord would leave them during the hardest times, but He replied that there was one because He carried them. Having been through some difficult times, I’ve learned that God doesn’t carry us in those times. I’ve also learned that it is normal to feel alone and even abandoned by God when we’re in the wilderness. What I do like in the poem is the idea of reflecting on the past. When we look back at the hardest times, we can see we were never abandoned by God, nor were we alone. He often uses those times to draw us close and even shows up in unexpected ways to meet our needs. The wilderness is often the path to growth.

In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah had literally had a mountain top experience. God had met him on Mount Carmel and sent fire from Heaven to burn his sacrifice. Israel began to turn from their false gods to serve the Lord. However, Jezebel wasn’t happy and wanted to kill him for it. His fear led him into the wilderness where depression took over. He wanted to die and felt alone. While he was sleeping an angel brought him food and water. He rested and the angel brought more. From there, he continued deeper into the wilderness and stayed in a cave where it was dark. Again God called to him and asked him what he was doing. He gave God a sob story about how bad his life was. God then called him out of the cave in the wilderness where he saw an mighty wind, an earthquake and a fire. All great signs, but God wasn’t in them. Then there was a still, small voice that God was in. Elijah found God in the smallest of moments in the wilderness rather than in big ones.

Isaiah 35:4-6 says, “Tell everyone who is discouraged, ‘Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.’ The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance, and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert” (GNT). If you’re in the wilderness right now wondering where God is, He is on the way to rescue you! He will cause stress to flow in your difficult time and make it a place of growth. You may be struggling to see Him now or even feel Him, but He is there caring for you and leading you through this time. When you look back at this period you will see how the still, small voice led you to a place of abundance. You are not forgotten. You are not forsaken. You are not alone. There is water in your wilderness.

Photo by Alex He on Unsplash

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 9, 2017 · 6:00 AM

Training For Godliness – Avoiding Injury

Each year, I take one week off from writing to help me refresh and reset. This is that week. To help you stay faithful to your daily devotional time, I’m bringing back a series I wrote a few years ago on disciplines we as Christians need to have. Enjoy and I’ll be back next week with all new devotions.

Avoiding Injury

The way to avoid or minimize injury in sports is to do all the right things. The same applies spiritually. One of the things you can do to prevent injury is stretching. When is the last time you stretched yourself spiritually? I’m not talking about a faith pledge financially. I’m talking about stepping out in faith and you really doing something positive for the Kingdom. It could be walking up to a stranger and just telling them, “God wanted me to tell you that He loves you.” It could be fasting for three days with water only to grow closer to God. It could be any number of things that you don’t think you can do for God.

Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” The same thing applies spiritually. If you don’t stretch yourself and think you can do more than you are right now, you’re right. You will stunt your growth and never do more than what you’re doing today. God wants us to step out of the boat like Peter did. When he saw Jesus walking on the water and asked Jesus to call him out of the boat, I’m sure his mind told him that he couldn’t do it. Thankfully his faith in God told him that he could. Have you asked jesus to call you out of your boat? Which voice are you listening to? Stretch yourself.

Pre-Training

So before you begin your in depth training for Godliness you need to be able to do some things first. You need to be able to read God’s Word without interruption. How much you read isn’t important in the beginning. It’s not about reading a chapter a day or at a time. God can speak to you with just one verse, but you need to be where you can hear Him speak to you through it. Get away from all distractions and the noise in your life. Jesus went away from others to hear God. You should too.

You also need to be in the habit of praying and listening. Prayer is important. I think contemplative prayer is even more so. I’ll do a post on this soon because it’s more than just praying what comes to mind. It’s purposefully thinking through your prayers. That’s something you work up to though. Beyond just praying, you need to learn to quiet your mind and give God time to speak to you. We, like Elijah in I Kings 19:11-14, think that God speaks loudly all the time. We want Him to speak to us audibly. Elijah saw a windstorm that tore rocks loose from the mountains, but God’s voice wasn’t there. He saw an earthquake, but God’s voice wasn’t there. He even saw fire, but God’s voice wasn’t there either. After the fire, there was a gentle whisper of God’s voice. That’s how God speaks to us. We need to get to where we can hear His voice, then quiet our mind and listen for it.

Tomorrow I’ll wrap this series up with some final thoughts and encouragement to continue your training for Godliness.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 2, 2015 · 7:10 AM

Being Led By Obedience

Recently I attended the commencement ceremonies for my alma matter and a friend of mine had been asked to be the keynote speaker. He talked to them about how the Bible says they should dress for success in life. In one of his points, he made the comment, “Be led by obedience to God, not by opportunity.” I stopped and wondered how many times I had confused opportunity with the will of God. It’s natural to think when a great opportunity presents itself that it’s from God. More often than not, those times are tests of our faith to see if we are going to be obedient to what God wants or to do what’s expedient for ourselves.

If you know anything about the story of David in the Bible, you know that after he was anointed King, Saul began to hunt him down to kill him in order to preserve his royal lineage. In I Samuel 24, Saul was hunting David and went into a cave to relieve himself. What he didn’t know was that David and his men were hiding in that very cave. The opportunity presented itself to David to be able to take Saul’s life and assume the throne. It appeared that God had given him the opportunity to fulfill the promise He had made to him.

David’s men saw it as such and spoke to him about it in verse 4. They said, “Now’s your opportunity! Today the Lord is telling you, ‘I will certainly put your enemy into your power, to do as you wish.” His men were led by opportunity instead of obedience and they gave him bad advice. I’m sure they were tired of living in caves and were ready to live in palaces. They saw this as their opportunity to get out of poverty. They knew David had been anointed the next King so this must have been God’s way of making it happen.

David took their suggestion that this was God’s will instead of seeking it out himself. He made a split decision that he regretted. He snuck up next to Saul and couldn’t kill him. Instead, he cut off a piece of his robe. He heard the quiet voice of God in his spirit over the overwhelming voices of his advisors. He chose to obey God instead by not killing him. His conscious bothered him for even cutting Saul’s robe. In verse 6 he said, “I shouldn’t attack the Lords anointed one, for the Lord himself has chosen him.” He knew the scriptures had said, “Don’t touch God’s anointed.” 

The Word of God should overrule any opportunity that presents itself. God will not ask you to do something that is contrary to the Bible. He may allow opportunities to arise in your life, but He will not ask you to chose them over obedience to what He’s already said. It takes wisdom, patience and courage to do what God says even if opportunities present themselves as God’s will for you. Always take time to seek out God’s voice over man’s when opportunity knocks. Don’t just assume it is God giving you what you want. Be led by obedience not by opportunity.
 

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,