Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
When does God speak? It is often in the time of unanticipated difficulty and spiritual calamity when things are very strident that we become earnest to hear at once.
Almighty God knows clearly what lies ahead of us and often warns us before it happens. This truth has been a fact of God’s faithfulness to me for years and probably to you as well—if we can learn to hear it.
My personal experience is that it is often during such a time of trouble that we find God’s silence present. Many Christians tend to accept things that come to their imaginations as being God speaking to them when it is not Him.
During seasons of deep difficult valleys in life our emotions become acutely affected. This can easily influence our thinking with the situations at hand and often leaves impressions that seduce our mind into wrong perceptions that are often concluded as being a word from God.
The tendency here is that the carnal mind concludes it as fact. The imagination of the unrestrained mind now becomes a convincing fact of things that are from God when in actuality, are far from Him.
God does not speak to my imaginations. He speaks to my heart. My experiential understanding is that it is seemingly because our “imaginations are aggressively inflamed” with desire for quick understanding or solutions and this places me in territories of great danger of being led incorrectly.
After Elijah killed the 450 Baal prophets and 400 grove prophets, the voice of Jezebel became alive. This voice rose up immediately after the powerful extinction of the voices of Baal. Elijah now flees for his life. He runs for exile 360 miles through the environmental extremities of the southern deserts of Israel into Saudi Arabia.
Elijah ran to the cave where Moses spends much of his time in exile at the mountain of God, even Horeb. Elijah was desperately thirsting to hear the voice of God. He was in dire need to hear direction, approval and comfort. Elijah knew that God was at Horeb when He spoke to Israel out of fire.
Elijah also knew that God was in Horeb when the water came from the rock and quenched the thirst of millions in the dusty hot and terrible desert. It was here at the mountain of God where He told Israel that they have been here long enough; they need to leave because there is the conquering of enemy territory ahead of them.
Deuteronomy 1:6 The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount: V.7 Turn you, and take your journey.
We cannot always lay our heads in the fresh waters of God’s grace and do nothing. There is a time to pursue His purposes even when it rains on us and when the battles rage.
Elijah’s desire to hear from God is evident. The desire for him to run the extreme distance in fear and agony to hear what he could hear also opened up the opportunity for everything to speak. Even the elements around him became inflamed with thunder, lightning and earthquakes. Even the wind broke the huge rocks. After all, this was where Moses stood to hear the voice of God.
Now the situation looked even more severe. Even God seemed to be in a frantic mode of wrath. Somehow in the entire dramatic earth shattering phenomenon that happened around Elijah that day, the Lord was not in any of it.
There were many things that day that caused Elijah’s emotions to hit exaggerated highs that were almost unbearable. There was only one thing that caused him to fold his mantle around his face. It was a still small voice! “What does thou here” is what the Lord said.
Elijah, go and pour oil upon the heads of common people that I have called to be kings. 7,000 have not bowed their knees to the falsehoods of Baal.Adam and Eve,in shame of their sin, were hiding among the trees. It was in the cool of the day, in the morning hours when things were quiet and refreshed, that God spoke.
God said, Adam, where art thou? Elijah, why are you here?
Jesus said, (Luke 24:38) Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
Jesus speaks to His own in a place of peace and in a peaceful way at a peaceful time. Jesus is the Prince of peace.
When He spoke to the tumultuous water in Galilee it became a place of peace because His disciples were there.
May we always remember that the shepherd leads and draws his sheep by the voice of peace? This is not the way he speaks to the enemy.
The surroundings of Jesus are framed in peace. Jesus does speak to you.Can you hear Him? Perhaps you need to go to a place of serenity where the Great Shepherd is welcome.
Leave the place of trouble. Step out of that ship you consider safe so you can hear Him and be led by Him correctly.
