One of the things that I am absolutely sure of is that Yahweh speaks. But He doesn’t just speak – He communicates. He converses.
Yahweh speaks, and when He speaks to us, He means every word He says. Every idea He communicates is sound, every revelation can be taken to heart, every prophesy can be trusted. My Father speaks.
The reason I’m so passionate about this is because I once believed that while, yes, He did indeed speak, He didn’t speak to certain people. And I believed I was one of them.
I wrestled with jealousy and brooded bitterly when people told me about their ‘Word’ from Yahweh.
I didn’t want to hear it because I didn’t have a word. I had nothing but silence on His end and confusion and anger on mine.
My relationship with Yahweh gained depth and clarity when I started writing. When I started using what He gave me, it helped me understand Him for myself. For myself. He revealed who He was to me through writing, and invited me into an intimate and unique relationship with Him.
I hit a lot of stumbling blocks in the beginning of my walk with Him that had little to do with skill and experience, and everything to do with my faith.
Soon after I started writing on a consistent basis, I began to realize that my faith was fragmented. There were areas in my life that I had unintentionally told Yahweh He wasn’t allowed to touch. There were areas in my heart that He was not involved in. There were relationships I hadn’t invited Him into, decisions I hadn’t consulted Him before making, inclinations and behaviors I wasn’t applying His word to, character flaws I was attempting to correct in my own strength with my will power instead of with the help of the Holy Spirit.
I had reduced Yahweh to a weekend practice with occasional consideration during working hours or whenever conviction struck. Religion had overpowered relationship. I was a slave to works based righteousness.
And the biggest way that I came to understand how fractured my faith was was through learning to communicate with Yahweh. Beyond conventionality and individualism, I began to hear Yahweh speak in things and situations before I heard Him unbidden in my own mind.
It began with using what He put in my hand. When I got in alignment and started writing, I realized that it wasn’t just a form of creative expression or a talent I had – it was a means of communication, it was the vehicle Yahweh would often use to get ideas and concepts across to me, and graciously allow me to share revelation with others.
As I let Him into my finances, and my relationships, my self-image and my habitual struggles, I began to hear His voice and see His hand in places I previously had not. I began to see the beauty in pain, and notice the shred of hope and humanity in depravity. I began to see the world through the eyes of others. I began to go in search of the bright side, and expect good instead of evil.
I didn’t know it then, but all of this was the mending process. This was Yahweh weaving Himself between the fissures of my faith, and stitching me together with His perspective. As He repaired the torn tapestry of my life and placed Himself in the rifts I’d made with my independence, He was preparing my mind to comprehend the reality that He can speak anywhere, at any time, using any medium He chooses.
As Scripture derailed the lies I’d constructed my life and worth on, I began to recognize the cadence and sound of His voice in my daily life. I began to recognize Him, to feel Him, to know Him for myself.
I began to take Him with me everywhere, and invite Him into my most private places, to share in my most personal pain. And there we bonded.
I released Him and His influence from the prison of weekend worship, and instead came bringing a gift to His Sabbath. I began to partake in Him every single day, and walked with Him through the mundane, the difficult, the tragic, and the lonely.
William P. Young said it beautifully in his book The Shack in a conversation that Yahshua was having with the book’s protagonist Mackenzie.
“Mack, I don’t want to be first amoung a list of values. I want to be at the centre of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than the top of a pyramid, I want to be the centre of a mobile, where eevything in your life – your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities – is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth in an incredible dance of being.”
So many of us miss Yahweh because we relegate Him to the confines of our ritualized practices. I want to submit for your consideration that perhaps the reason why your life feels off balance and out of whack is because you have not given Yahweh free reign over your entire life. Perhaps the reason you aren’t hearing Him is because you only expect Him to speak to you in one way, in one area, about one thing, and He has so much more to tell you than that.
That’s not how transformative, impactful, truly life-changing faith works.
If you truly believe that Yahweh can only speak to you in a church setting, during your scheduled quiet time, or through a third party mediator, then your faith is more than likely fragmented.
Yahweh wants to use the entirety of your human experience to lead and guide you. He wants to speak to you through your children’s laughter and your wife’s smile. He wants to speak to you through the rigor of your job or the frustration of your process. He can give you vision for your life through a sunset and mend your broken heart while you gaze at the stars.
Take the limits off of your perception of what He sounds like. Let Him manifest Himself to you in the way He knows is best, and be open to the unexpected and unconventional. Let Him customize the bond He shares with you, and reveal Himself to you in a way that will truly transform your whole life for the better.
Invite Him to walk between the pieces of your fragmented faith the way He walked through the pieces of severed flesh when He made the covenant with a sleeping Abraham. Let Him solidify the promise He made to you before you were even born.
Let Him make you whole by bonding the pieces of you together with the only glue that was meant for a human soul: His love. Let Him make your faith whole, strong, and inclusive.
Be encouraged.