Survey Questions #3

3. Can you describe your everyday communication with God? Has this changed much since you first gave your life to Christ?
In the beginning I guess I was more structured in my communication. Over the years I have become more talkative with the Lord and less structured to wait on the “right” setting and circumstances.   [Paul D.  USA]

When I first gave my life to the Lord I did not have any real understanding of just how wonderful His love is and I worked very hard at pleasing Him by my own efforts. This was very frustrating and left me discouraged and unsatisfied most of the time. I am so thankful that now life is a simple walk with Him. It involves continual intercommunication between Him and me.  This is not always even in conscious interaction but mainly in the awareness of His amazing care and love that plans each day. I have an awareness that He shares life with me in a more intimate way than any human could, even my wife who I dearly love.  [David R. Ireland]

Unrecognisably so!  I am having an ongoing conversation with Jesus. I have discovered Him as my Friend and companion. I have discovered my own weakness to a degree and He is right here to complete my shortcomings. Now I am on a daily journey of discovery of this principle.     [Stephen V.  South Africa]

I describe it above as a growing conviction over time, and that says it all for me.  Has it changed?  Absolutely.  In the early days I could hardly hear Him or recognize His workings.  And when I did hear, the thoughts sounded so far fetched that I ignored them, thinking they were my own.  I’ve since come to learn that God’s thoughts are the ones I struggle with most.  They make no sense to my natural mind but by learning to listen my recognition of His voice has grown better.  I hear Him more and follow Him more quickly, for the most part.  But He still drives me nuts some days with growing convictions I think are outrageous, until I give in and see what He had in mind all along.  [Wayne J. USA]

God is more part of me than then… even when I doubt this, in the deepest places I know it to be true. I used to think it was by mighty works that my communication could be most effective. Now I know the secret place, and to tell you the truth, I just want to stay there because it’s the only safe place in my world. It’s no longer like I am speaking to someone ‘out-there’, He is now much more a part of me, here and now. It’s a hiding place and it’s not – I have come to recognise that divine things happen in my day when I am able to touch the heart of God in those times of quietness and rest.  [Charles M. South Africa]

Yes, it has changed quite a bit. I listened to Him from the beginning, but I also had a tendency to try to “force” Him to speak to me by using different formulas, structures and principles as if somehow He was far off from me and I had to get Him to visit me. . . and in His grace He did sometimes speak or make Himself known to. . .  but other times there was just silence.

Now I try to flow with Him just as I described in the first question; listening and talking throughout the day because I know He is with me everywhere and always – it’s a matter of me giving my attention to Him, not the other way around.   [Stefan A. Sweden]