Job 47:7-9
As I mentioned, if you made the assumption that the only way to solve the puzzle is to keep your lines within the square, you’ll find out you made a false assumption. You may try and try and try, based on that assumption, but you will never come to the solution.
This little puzzle is a good example about the often made mistake of acting on certain assumptions we make and their consequences. We make these kinds of mis-assumptions all the time in little or large ways.
For example, men have never understood women. We men hear a woman say one thing, and we make the assumption she is really saying another. Those assumptions can be very dangerous and get us men in a lot of trouble. For example, here are some simple phrases women make, and the assumptions we guys think the woman is really saying:
We need = I want It’s your decision = The correct decision should be obvious by now Do what you want = You’ll pay for this later We need to talk = I need to complain You’re...so manly = You need a shave and you sweat a lot This kitchen is so inconvenient = I want a new house I heard a noise = I noticed you were almost asleep Do you love me? = I’m going to ask for something expensive How much do you love me? = I did something today you’re not going to like I’ll be ready in a minute = kick off your shoes and find a good game on TV You have to learn to communicate = Just agree with me Yes = No No = No Maybe = No I’m sorry = You’ll be sorry Do you like this recipe? = It’s easy to fix so you’d better get used to it All we’re going to buy is a soap dish = It goes without saying that we’re stopping at the cosmetics department, the shoe department, I need to look at a few purses, and some new sheets would look great in the bedroom and did you bring your check book?
Anyway, you get the idea. The assumptions anyone makes can lead us in entirely the wrong direction. Especially about God and listening to God. For example, we make huge assumptions about how we think God speaks to us, or how we think God should speak to us. Lots of people are waiting to hear the Voice from the sky like what happened when Jesus was baptized, or Moses spoke to the burning bush, or Paul being knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus.
But for most of us, God may never speak directly to us with the Voice from the clouds. For most of us, God gets our attention, or speaks to us through other people. God uses others as God’s mouthpiece, and it’s a matter of listening and paying attention to others so we can hear God speak. When you think about it, unless we talk to ourselves a lot, most all of our conversation is with other people. Why can’t God use all that talking and listening to speak to us?
So, in order to listen for God, to listen to God, it may not be about listening to God himself. It may be more about listening to other people. In order to listen for God, you have to listen to what people are saying. In order to serve God, you have to serve others, and pay attention to what is happening in their lives.
By listening to other people we are trying to get an inkling of what God is doing, or has been doing, with them in their lives. It would be like talking with someone about their spouse. By listening, you are finding out how their spouse is affecting their life, and vice versa. You are finding out about someone you may have never met, but you’re getting to know them nonetheless.
The same is true when we listen to people tell about their experience with God. We may not know very much about God. But if we listen well, we will learn a great deal, not only about God, but also where the person is in their relationship with God. We will find out that their experience with God had been going on for some time, even though they may not have interpreted it as such.
By listening to them, we are trying to get an inkling of what God is doing or has been doing, with them. And then, by listening, we must then discern what our role is: are we to help get the person a little further along the way?; are we supposed to “close the deal”?; or, are we supposed to be a silent witness?
What we sometimes don’t get is that by listening to this person or that person, we are ultimately listening to God who is at work in both that person who has crossed our path, as well as ourselves.
It just may be that we are not supposed to talk to that person about Christ. It may be that this person is not for us to influence, even though our egotistical attitude is pushing us to do so. Maybe God had that person cross our path to get something across to us! Maybe we are the object of God’s Voice, and if we aren’t listening correctly, thinking that we are God’s gift to this other person, and we have something to tell them, then we will miss hearing God. We have to listen to discern that.
Back in 1976, I had a seminary internship in Dodge City and Spearville. I worked in Dodge with the Christian Education and Youth programs. I served as Intern Pastor at the Spearville church.
During that year, the Dodge City church hosted, for a 3 month period, Zarine and Molly Ralston. Zarine was a Pastor in the Church of South India. He and Molly were itinerating around the United States for a year as missionaries from the Church of South India to the United States. Did you get that? They were missionaries to the United States.
It took a while for me to get my head around that fact: that the Church of South India decided the United States needed someone to set our country straight about the gospel. That we didn’t get it. That we had strayed from the faith and needed someone from India to tell us all about it. My imperialistic, American Christian thinking had to be reorganized so I could really hear what they were saying. I had this intrenched notion that we American Christians were the ones who sent out missionaries to “backward countries” that were overrun by other religions. That they were the ones who didn’t get it. But I had to adjust my arrogance so I could listen correctly and hear God speaking through Zarine and Molly. I had to listen to Zarine and Molly in order to listen to God. It was an amazing 3 months. In addition to hearing the gospel in a different way, I learned a lot about cooking with curry from them as well, which was a great side benefit.
This listening to others in order to hear God’s voice can be a hard discipline to master. We make the assumption that God will somehow make His Voice come straight to us, without any kind of intermediary. That, that’s how God is supposed to speak to us so we know absolutely, without question, that it was God speaking to us.
But think of the main problem that people had with Jesus. Jesus said God’s Voice was speaking through him. To the religious teachers and leaders, that was blasphemy: thinking that you spoke for God, or spoke as God. So there’s a fine line we might have to walk, listening for God through other people. Some people who say they speak for God are the worst witnesses. And those who humbly walk through their day may be the very ones whom God is choosing to make His Voice known.
The whole premise behind the book of Job is that these three friends show up to try and “comfort” Job, and end up totally misrepresenting God. They presume to speak for God to Job, telling him exactly what God told them to say to Job. But Job didn’t buy it, and neither did God.
When listening for God, the difference is the presumption. The three friends presumed to speak for God. They were full of religious arrogance. But the real mouthpiece of God is the person who has no idea she is being the mouthpiece of God. But we can tell the difference, can’t we? When the Voice is true, we hear the sincerity and humility behind it, that she has no idea she’s being used by God. That’s what we’re listening for.
I’ve been watching some of the back episodes of the TV show, Bones. It’s a show about an FBI Special Agent, named Booth, who is teamed up with a cultural anthropologist that Booth has nicknamed “Bones,” because she works with identifying dead people’s bones. Bones is also an atheist, who believes religion is all cultural mumbo jumbo. Booth is a strict Catholic, and their dialogue about religion is sometimes fun to follow.
In one episode, they are trying to solve the murder of an Amish teenager. During one of the interrogations of an Amish community member, Bones is spouting her anthropological disagreements with the man’s religion. He is strong in his faith, and she’s not hearing him. She’s hearing the man through her own prejudices. At one point in the interview, the Amish man tells Bones, “You are not hearing me; we believe the greatest sin is to presume to speak for God.”
I found myself totally agreeing with the Amish man. How many atrocities have been committed by those who have “presumed to speak for God?” Poor God! He’s got all these people wandering around the planet spouting off about how they know exactly what God thinks, and what God wants. They are totally clear-headed about how they think like God and know God’s mind. They’ve got it straight from God, or so they say. The people who may be the most dangerous are those who think they have the direct pipeline to God, rather than listen to God through what I would call, the humble others.
The best way to listen for God may be to listen to others, but NOT those who presume to speak FOR God. Other than Jesus. So it is a bit of a messy listening process.
It is to listen to those who presume nothing of the sort, and suddenly, when they have spoken, we know—we know for sure that God has spoken! And spoken to us! That’s how the people reacted to Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. People said, “Here is someone who speaks with authority.” That is, authenticity, humility.
When we hear people like that, isn’t it usually the case that the speaker has no idea that they’ve been used by God as God’s Voice. But we do. We’re sure of it. We may have been mulling over some situation for some time, praying about it, contemplating, and then BOOM! God speaks through an unsuspecting mouthpiece.
That’s why we have to listen so attentively for God. We never know when, how, or through whom God will speak. And God has NO restrictions through whom He can speak. If we put those restrictions on God, thinking all the lines have to be within the dots, we will miss that great Voice, and the words that may be meant just for us. We may miss the opportunity to hear God speak because we expected God can only speak one way, or only through certain people who presume to be God’s mouthpiece. And, after all, just think. God may use you as an unsuspecting mouthpiece for someone else, carrying a God message you had no idea you were speaking.
No comments:
Post a Comment