On my drive home one evening, I was thinking about all the different ways that God talks to each of us. The way I receive from Him most clearly is through visuals and sometimes words, but more often He reveals to me in pictures, scenes, or little movies. I asked Him WHY this is how He talks to me and His so matter-of-fact response was “I told you I would show you…” and I knew exactly what He was referring to.
A couple years ago I worked through the Keys to Freedom study book, guided by a trusted friend. I didn’t know I needed this specific material, but she did; my only awareness was feeling badly broken and desperate not to be. I approached it with preconceived ideas of the big things I KNEW were issues for me; these were what I assumed would be priority focus to get me all fixed up. About a third of the way through, the guidance for that day’s work was to ask the Lord to highlight one specific lie that has power in your life. Mine was My relationship with God isn’t good enough for my prayers to matter or make a difference. The enemy had reminded me of that for so long, together with shame and guilt trips, that it had settled in me as it is what it is, no changing it. So I believed I could not pray, or if I did, it would be a useless effort and waste of time so why bother. And forget about the most important part of God conversation—Him talking to you! Not even on the radar; if you can’t say anything meaningful to Him, He’s certainly not going to say anything back to you. Anyway, you can see the fruitlessness of this circular non-logic.
As I dug into this lie, I encountered Jeremiah 33:3 in a fresh new way:
Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know… (AMPC)
It seemed so alive and three-dimensional, like I was reading it for the first time! You’ve probably heard stories from folks (or your own!) who had come-to-Jesus, all-cards-on-the-table encounters with God at some point, almost daring Him to be real—and God!—where an ultimatum is thrown down: If You’re real, You have to show yourself to me in such and such way. You know what I’m talking about. And so I latched similarly onto these words from God to Jeremiah. As a girl who had been deceived into thinking she could not talk to Him and that it did not matter, the verse was almost a challenge to just test it out, give it a spin. I mean God Himself said it… so this verse became my new go-to as I timidly tried it out; I would pray a little tiny something then end it with, But You said when I called on You, You would answer and show me things, so…!! (Double exclamation intended)
On that drive when He answered my question of why He speaks to me in pictures, He was reminding me of His own truth, the personal promise He’d faithfully been adhering to in our conversations. I sighed with relief, thankful we were on speaking terms after the wilderness of deception I had wandered through for too long.
The lies of you’re not able to pray to God, or you can’t or you don’t know how or some form of those are bad enough. But the blatant falsehood of your relationship with God isn’t good enough to pray is especially insidious because of the life-or-death importance conversing with God is in our relationship; in knowing Him, in everything about faith and trust and walking with God. If you aren’t good enough to pray, but yet life transformation comes from God and relationship with Him, how will any change ever happen if you can’t get close to the Source? It’s a two-pronged lie really, aimed at both you (your worth and good-standing) and God (his supposed judgment of your worthiness, a seed of unbelief about God’s powerful unconditional love for us). If you can’t get close, then you won’t know Him. If you don’t know Him, then you won’t know that you CAN be close, and that He isn’t evaluating your status of goodness to determine your approved proximity to Him.
If you think you can’t pray, that feels like a dead-end street, no moving forward. And if you can’t pray, you won’t rely on Him, or at some point find out directly from Him that not good enough isn’t on any scale He uses, for listening or loving. If you think you can’t go to Him (and prayer is going to Him), then you will not have first-hand truth to counter lies in your life; you will not be able to move past where you may be stuck in thoughts, beliefs, or deceptions; you will not take full advantage of being the grace-covered receiver you were created to be. You will be in exactly the place the enemy would love for you to stay: distanced from God (his words, not God’s).
For me during this study, even though there were big things that I felt needed attention, God knew it was foundational that I first know that I could talk with Him, that I HAD to talk with Him, that nothing else I tried to move forward with for healing or revealing would work without us communing, conversing. This is foundational for all of us as Christians in everything; we cannot live a God life without talking with God.
We cannot receive true, pure love without engaging with the One who gives it.
We won’t hear His voice if we don’t know that He passionately desires to talk to us.
We won’t understand the authority we walk in if we don’t get the heart and intention of it directly from the One who commanded it for our lives.
How can we show Him and share Him if all we have is second-hand info? God is not a rumor.
How will we know He has healed us if we don’t let Him confirm it personally?
How will I believe that He really knows me if I never hear Him speak uniquely to me?
Prayer is a crucial part of our relationship with God, just like conversing and connecting are vital to any of the connections we value. What are our earthly relationships like with people we never see, never talk to, never interact with? Likely non-existent.
Our God loves us, invites us, calls us, instructs us to pray.
Ask, seek, knock…
Come to Me, all you…
Call on Me and I will…
It is the desire and beckoning from the Creator King Father Savior.
We have to know what He says—through His voice, His word, His Spirit—so that we’ll distinguish the other messages that come at us of don’t, can’t, unworthiness as lies and know that we don’t listen or believe those but refute and counter them with truth, taking them captive to Christ’s obedience.
We have to know Him to trust Him, so we can then open up dark closets and expose bleeding wounds or thick scars, to get free and be healed.
God, I can’t wrap my brain around that You—God!—want to talk with me! It’s truly amazing and I’m thankful you made a way for us to commune, to draw near each other. Your Word says You hear me when I call on You and that you’ll show me and tell me things that I don’t yet know. I’m coming to You now with all these things, facing You and trusting that You’ll keep Your word. Thank You for hearing me, seeing me, knowing me, but most of all loving me, no matter what!
Scripture reference – let the word speak to you personally!
Matthew 7:7-8
Matthew 11:28
Psalm 91:15
John 10:1-5
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Romans 10:12-13
Jeremiah 29:11-13
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image by debra