I had an unusual experience the other day.
I was taking an exam as part of a course on relationships. The paper consisted of two sections. The first part contained a number of short answer questions, while the second required the writing of a short essay.
The exam was held in quite a large room with only artificial light, and there were about 40 candidates sitting. I did not know any of the other people sitting the exam.
I began the paper and handled the first section fairly well, taking about an hour. I was quite familiar with the material and it would have taken me less time except that the light was not particularly good and my eyesight is not great. As anyone who has poor sight knows, your eyes quickly become tired and you just want to close them. By the time I was ready to begin the essay I was already feeling quite tired.
At one point I suddenly woke up from a deep sleep and realised that I could hardly see. The light was down to a mere glimmer. I then realised that I had not even begun to write the essay part of the paper and I suppose I panicked a bit. I jumped up and groped through the greyness trying to find the light switch. When I found the switches I discovered that only one of the four was on. I turned on another switch and nothing happened. The next caused a computer sitting on a desk against the wall to come on, much to the surprise of someone working at that desk. By then I was beginning to get angry, especially as I then heard the examiner announce that the time for writing was finished. The fourth switch produced a small amount of light so I stormed back to my desk, muttering about the unfairness of it all.
I decided that I would write as much as I could before the papers were collected. I had not chosen a subject for the essay yet, so I decided that I would simply write out what had just occured. So, in fact, what you are now reading is the paper I produced for that exam. As I wrote I began to suspect that perhaps I was being manipulated. Perhaps all of the other students were in on the joke and I was being watched to see how I would react.
At that point the teacher went to the wall, turned a knob, and the room was flooded with light. I kept writing as long as I could and this is the point before I was forced to stop and my paper was collected.
Once the exam was over I began thinking about my reactions. Panic, anger, withdrawal (going to sleep?), feeling of injustice, paranoia, navel gazing! Then there was an intense feeling of relief - if it was a test of a different kind then I need not worry about the result of the written exam.
At that point I woke up and realised that it was all a dream - none of the above really happened! I knew I had to write the paper - I experienced myself writing it during the dream and the Lord enabled me to reproduce exactly what I had written here in this blog.
Once I realised that it was "only a dream" I was then rather mystified as to why it had happened. It seemed so real. I could still feel the emotions invoked by it.
So, my question to you, dear reader (assuming there is only one of you), is, having waded so far through this post, what was your response to finding out that it was all fiction? Perhaps you would like to post a comment in the blog (or in the linked Google group if that is where you are reading this).
Or, was it actually fiction? This was a real dream - I didn't invent it. I believe it was a dream from God. In which case, the question you might like to answer is what is God trying to say to me?
Then, because I believe God wanted me to post this in the blog (I'm not really that mischeivous - at least not all the time), then what is God saying to
YOU?
I await your responses with interest.
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This morning Diana and I attended part of the Restoration Conference, where Sandra Rule of
Sonrise Family Ministries was speaking about ministering to children. Sandra is always interesting to listen to, and I will share more later about her work, especially about her monthly visits to us at
Beth Tephillah Ministry Centre. We and some of our staff are interning with her to learn the special skills needed to help children.
However, what particularly stood out today was the need to be totally reliant on listening to God's voice when ministering to troubled kids and their families. Without the revelation gifts you can do little. Without Jesus you can do
nothing!
Some other important points she made include the facts that children do not receive a junior Holy Spirit - he's the full deal; the power of touch when it comes to blessing people; and the fact that Jesus wants to bless people whether they know him or not.
On the first one, it has been our experience, and Sandra mentioned it again today, that some children are being born filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb. They know Jesus at a very young age. We believe this will become more common as the generation who will bring in the Kingdom are born. Our task is to instruct them in how to live in the Spirit and to allow them to do it.
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We just had a seminar in Newport called Step Out and Prophesy with Lynn Moresi of
Equiping 2 Serve. It was very similar to the teaching and exercises of our
Hearing God's Voice course, and was a great encouragement for people who had never believed that they could prophesy to step out and have a try. The teaching was good and well presented, and the exercises were fun to do. I recommend it to anyone.
The seminar served to provide a safe place for people to practice listening to God's voice. However, I would have been happier if some instruction had been given about how to tell if it really is God's voice that they were hearing. I later queried Lynn about this and she basically said that if we have asked for the Holy Spirit then we can trust that this is what God will give.
This is true, if it is the Holy Spirit we are asking for, but in this case we were asking to hear something. It is fine to expect this to happen in the safe envoronment of a seminar, but what happens when they go out into the world, expecting that every voice they hear is God's. I suggested that as well as God's voice, people can also hear their own thoughts (or even dissociate parts), demons, and other people's spirits. Lynn is not at all happy with this last possibility, but anyone who is familiar with the experience of burden-bearing, or of intercession in general, will know it is a reality.
Still, with this one caveat I thouroughly recommend this seminar if you have an opportunity to do it.
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Hi and welcome to Listening 2 God blog.
This blog is intended to complement the
listening2god.com website - a website for those who want together to learn more about hearing God's voice, and how to recognise the voice of God among the many other voices claiming our attention.
Is it possible to hear God's voice? Since God is a person, who desires intimacy with those who he calls his friends, then of course it is possible. In fact, I believe everybody hears God speaking.The real question is - is it possible to learn to reliably recognise God's voice?
The answer is most definitely
YES!God is not human - God is Spirit. So we would expect that hearing God might be a bit different from hearing another person. But it is not that much different, because humans also are spiritual beings, made in the image of God, and created for communion, and therefore communication, with him. God has built numerous ways into the creation by which we hear him speak. Some of these are:
* Human conscience
* Awe of his created world
* Our spirit can respond to his Spirit
* He can 'speak' thoughts into our mind
* The witness of the Holy Spirit - e.g. inner peace
* He speaks through other people
* Spiritual gifts, such as prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, wisdom, knowledge, discernment of spirits
* Dreams and visions
* His written word, the Bible
* And the primary revelation of God - his Son Jesus ChristIn addition, God has provided ways for us to test and confirm whether what we are hearing is accurate and really from God. This is because His is not the only voice we might hear. We can, of course, hear our own thoughts, but it is also possible to hear the thoughts of others and of angels and evil spirits.
We have learned a number of effective ways for people to sharpen their spiritual hearing and discernment,
If you would like to learn more about how to hear God's voice, and how to check what you hear, then visit the teaching section of the website, or contact us about a course in Hearing God's Voice. We also run courses on Intercession and Spiritual Warefare, Prayer Ministry, Intimacy with God, and the Creative Spirit.
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