Whisper Pt 2

Whisper Pt 2

 This is Chuck Rapp with a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters. 

Last time I shared part 1 of how we hear our Shepherd’s voice.  Those thoughts and today’s follow the main points of the book “Whisper” written by Mark Batterson. 

The author suggests that God speaks to us in 7 ways.  Previously we looked at how He speaks through:

1.) Scripture – His Word to us

2.) Desires - that God places within our hearts

3.) Open Doors – He often leads us through our circumstances

4.) Dreams - as well as visions

Following are three additional ways that God speaks to us. 

5.) People – Solomon provides some good advice in Proverbs 15:22. “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.”  A key for us is to carefully select the appropriate advisers in our lives and to then have the humility to listen and heed their counsel.  Close friends or a spouse can help us see past our own blind spots. 

6.) Promptings – God speaks to us through promptings of the Holy Spirit. Oswald Chambers wrote that “The checks of the [Holy] Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect his voice you will quench it … His checks always come as a still small voice…”  Something that I have personally found to be quite helpful is to verbally confess to the Lord, “I sense that You are saying such and such to me.  Lord, I give this thought to You.  If this thought is from You, please confirm it.  If this thought is not from You, then please cause me to forget about it.”  As I make the effort to seek the Lord and to discern His promptings, I’ve found the Lord faithfully answers that prayer. 

7.) Pain – In his classic book, The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  In these current days in my country, many people – Christ followers and others – are feeling a great deal of emotional, spiritual, and sometimes physical pain resulting from the pandemic, social unrest and a contentious national election.  I believe the Lord is trying to get our attention through this pain; He desires that a hurting world turn to Him.  

 

As His children, His sheep, God wants to speak to us, and He wants us to hear, to discern His message to us.  Let us make sure that the Lord’s voice is the loudest voice in our lives.    

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.