I don't know what you think about God talking to you, I don't know if you struggle to hear him or you are just so busy you don't take time to listen to him. But much in the same way, there are characters in the bible that have had the full spectrum of God talking to them.
There are times that God will speak to people in an audible voice and there will be times when God speaks in the smallest whisper, there are times when God has spoken with actions and with direction, and there are times when God has used prophets to speak to his people. I could go on and on about the ways in which God speaks to us, but I’m going to concentrate on God speaking to us, almost unexpectedly.
Matthew 1:20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Just before the angel appeared to Joseph, he had been considering divorcing Mary, and also he was probably feeling pretty down and low about things at the moment. I can imagine he was very untrusting of Mary at this time as well, I mean think about it, if your wife was to say to you “I’m pregnant, but I’m still a virgin” you’d be thinking… ‘yeah right, whatever love…’ and its pretty certain that Joseph was thinking these things.
I would think that Joseph was in quite an angry state and probably didn’t want to pray to God asking for his guidance or asking him for his peace about the situation, so for God to speak to him was both important and very necessary.
The dream itself is not to dissimilar to dreams that many people in the bible have had, an appearance of a heavenly spirit, or being in front of them speaking to them very implicitly about a situation that they are going through. In this instance it is an unnamed angel who spoke to him, and spoke some pretty strange and scary words.
Imagine waking up from that dream! You’d think that you were crazy, an angel said that the child that was within your wife’s stomach, was going to save people from their sins. I don’t know about you, but I’d be freaking out by this point, but Joseph did exactly what the angel said.
The point I’m trying to make is this, God still speaks to us when we’re angry and don’t want to listen, and also when we are in despair and we forget that we can cry out to God and he will hear our prayer.
Take confidence from Joseph that despite going through bad times and times where the only way out seems to be to give up, God still works through those particular scenarios and makes a way for something so much better, and he still talks to us comforting us through these times.
I pray that if you are going through times of decision or times of trouble that you will ask God for his help and that you quiet your heart to listen to his will.
More later!
1 comment:
Thanks for this. I believe that God longs to speak clearly to all of us but the simple truth is that a lot of Christians are simply too busy to listen.
Also many Christians are too rational. We need more heart and less head imho.
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