Hearing from God: What have You got to Lose?

I want to start today’s post with a quote from my daughter’s book Hearing from God –

If you feel like God does not have time for you, that is not true. He always has time for you and wants to talk to you. If you know that God wants to talk to you it makes it a lot easier to pray.”

I wanted to start with this quote because I spent many years of my life not talking to God because I didn’t think He was listening to me. I figured if I didn’t put myself out there, then I couldn’t get hurt, or “rejected” by Him. But what a lie I was believing!

So many of us live with this lie that God doesn’t have time for us or that He has better things to do than worry about our issues. But it’s not true.

I remember back in college, listening to a message about prayer. Something I’ll never forget was when the pastor said, “God doesn’t care about finding you a good parking spot so don’t waste your time with prayers like that.” I remember feeling so convicted because at the time I was working at Starbucks and had to be at work at 4am, so I used to pray and asked God to help me find a close parking spot, so I didn’t have to walk too far in the dark. So all that time I’d been bothering God with my worries of finding a good parking spot, dang!

Shortly after that message, probably one night when I was looking for a parking spot, the Lord spoke to me and told me He did care about helping me find a good parking spot. He told me that because it was something that was important to me, it mattered to Him.

We have to stop believing the lie that we don’t matter to God, or that what’s important to us, isn’t important to Him. I believe Malea’s words are true, that if we know God wants to talk to us, then it makes it easier to talk to Him. Tell the enemy you’re done with his lie and start believing the truth –

God craves time with you, just like you crave time with your children.

Another lie so many of us spend our lives believing, is that God is mad at us because we’ve done something wrong, or we haven’t spent time with Him. I’m going to borrow another quote from Malea’s book because I love how simple and true it is.

If you don’t feel like God is listening to you, stop feeling like that! God is always there for you, even when you do something wrong. He is never mad at you when you make a bad choice, He might be sad but He will always forgive you and He will never leave you suffering.”

It’s true, God doesn’t hold grudges, His love is everlasting and He is a forgiving Father. If you’re believing God is mad at you, it’s because you’re believing the enemy and living under the covering of shame. Shame will always rob us of the truth but if we can rebuke the shame, God has so much in store for us.

Instead of your shame
you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
and everlasting joy will be yours.” (Isaiah 61:7)

What a beautiful picture of truth! God wants to remove your shame and give you a double portion – not only is He not mad, He wants to heal you and bless you!

When I step back and think about the lies the enemy blinds us with, it makes me SO MAD! The fact that he can convince us that God doesn’t have time for us, or that God is mad at us, is so far from the truth, yet how many of us spend our lives feeling that way? Man he’s a jerk!

While we’re on the topic of “what have you got to lose?” I want to address one more thing. Have you ever been praying for someone and felt like the Lord was giving you something to tell them, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to tell them. Instead all these thoughts ran through your mind –

What if it’s wrong? What if they think I’m crazy? What if they judge me? What if they don’t get healed?”

I could go on and on with the “what if’s” but I think you all know what I’m talking about. What I want you to know is that in those moments you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

God doesn’t need us to deliver His messages but He invites us into the story to partner with Him in transforming someone’s life. He’s entrusting us with a message and we can either deliver it, or give into fear. What I’ve learned is that God will often speak once, and very subtly, but the enemy is loud and repetitive.

I always tell people that when you’re listening to the Lord, take the first thing you hear, and ignore everything after that. 99.9% of the time everything after that subtle voice, is the enemy’s attempts to trap God’s word in your mind and never let if come off your lips.

When all those fearful thoughts come into your mind, “what if…?”, put yourself in the other person’s place. If they had a word for you, would you want them to give it to you, or trap it in a cage of fear?

Of course you would want the word!

So next time God gives you a word for someone, speak it confidently! Instead of saying “what if it’s wrong?” ask yourself these questions –

What if it changes their life? What if they feel God for the first time through my words? What if God actually heals them?! What if God not only blesses them through my words but also blesses me for being obedient?”

You see, there are so many more positive “what if’s” then negative ones.

The next time you hear the enemy tell you, “God doesn’t care about that small issue” or “don’t bother God with your problems”, I want you to rebuke the lie and remember the truth that God does care about every single thing you care about.

Or the next time you feel like God is mad at you, or doesn’t want to talk to you, I want you to rebuke that lie and remember the truth – God is a loving, forgiving Father, who’s not mad at you but His heart is breaking for you to reach out to Him.

And the next time God speaks to you in a moment, for someone else, I want you to speak the words boldly and remember that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!!!

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