Dr. Pam Morrison is a pastor from Kansas City who works primarily with recovering addicts and is engaged in overseas missions. She is married and has two children, both married, and five grandchildren. She authored Jesus and the Addict: Twelve Bible Studies for People Getting Free from Drugs, published in 2018.
You can listen to her podcast, Rooted by the Stream on Charisma Podcast Network.
Most people who seek God are hungry to hear His voice clearly.
Sometimes people will feel frustrated and say, "I don't feel like I hear Him very much at all." They may feel wistful as they see others who seem so connected to God.
How can we hear Him better and what does it mean to "hear His voice?"
Not too long ago, my husband and I visited another church in our city. As we arrived at the church, it was pouring rain.
We had visited once before and didn't feel right about parking in the guest spaces near the front door, although that would have been lovely and kept us much drier.
We drove down into the parking lot behind the church.
My husband shut off the car and I turned to get out. Immediately, on my side of the car, was a young man who introduced himself as Sam. He was holding an umbrella to protect me as I got out.
I happened to have an umbrella as did my husband, but we were stunned by the kindness. Sam didn’t mind that he had walked all the way down for us when we already could protect ourselves from the rain. He just said, "I hope you will truly enjoy the service."
When we walked in, people warmly greeted us, going out of their way to come over to say hello and, "if you need anything, let me help!"
One of the pastors spoke that morning about positioning ourselves to receive all of God's blessings. She said, "You won't be able to do that unless you listen to what He says about you." And then she quoted Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
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"'For I know the thoughts I think toward you,' says the Lord, 'thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.'"
She paused in the middle of the scripture and said, "Do you hear Him speaking to you?"
He says, "I know the thoughts I have towards you."
"Stay on that for a moment! He has thoughts towards you, and they are good ones. Sometimes we forget He is speaking to us through His Word, and because of that, we panic and try to fix things ourselves. But He is speaking, and He says He has good thoughts towards us, to give us a future and a hope. To give them to us."
I was reminded through Sam's kindness and the pastor's message of two of the many ways God is always speaking to us – through people's kindness and through His Word. That same morning, I "heard" God saying many things through the worship songs we sang. Some of the lines of the songs stood out as if in bold print. As the pastor spoke, thoughts came to me shaped by God. His voice joined my thoughts.
He is always speaking whether through worship songs, scripture, through kind actions of others, or even through their words.
I remember arriving at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina several years ago, coming in with a group in one car. As we arrived at the gate, the gate attendant bent over, leaned in, and greeted us through the driver's window saying, "So glad you all are here. We've been waiting for you." I remember tears filling my eyes. It was God's voice through this man, so welcoming, so kind. "We've been waiting for you."
God is always speaking in so many ways. We do hear Him, more than we realize!
Gideon was a man just trying to get through one more awful day.
The people called the Midianites were relentlessly devastating Israel, destroying the crops, killing the livestock, and making his people incredibly poor and discouraged. Israel had pulled away from God and this was the result. Now Gideon was hiding in a winepress of all places, threshing wheat, just trying not to lose anything more while the people were crying out for help.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared and called him, "Mighty Warrior."
You could say Gideon found this to be crazy talk, hearing the heavenly visitor tell him the Lord was with them. Have you looked around? was basically Gideon's reply. Do you see what we are going through, I'm going through? It looks like the Lord has abandoned us.
God answered that Gideon should go in the strength that he had and save Israel, that He was sending him.
Gideon continued to protest about his worthless family and his low place in it. How do I know this is you, God? he fretted. But God's answer kept coming back that He would be with Gideon and that Gideon would save his nation. Often, we find ourselves in places just like Gideon.
Years ago, I served a small church as pastor. They felt their best days were behind them. Their numbers at that time were far fewer than what they had been in their heyday. There were only 2 children, 3 every other Sunday, and most of the members were senior citizens. The location of the church was where a town had once been, in the middle of farm fields. Like Gideon, they saw their circumstances as overwhelming and perhaps a sign that God had passed them by. That was their self-image, defeated, incapable of rising again, hidden from the world.
But God had a different name and plan. He called them "vital church." They simply needed to hear Him and His love which is always overflowing with hope, even if we've failed. They needed a few new strategies just as Gideon did which he, and they, received.
With a one-room Sunday school curriculum, the church began to meet the needs of children of different ages in one class. They began actively inviting children to church and later to the first Vacation Bible School they had had in a long time. They entered the town parade. Parents of the kids were lovingly invited too. Ultimately, the church doubled its attendance and started a youth group for teens. A fellowship hall was built. They began to thrive again. All this, because they made the decision to hear God's good heart for them and not listen to their own internal, fearful voices.
You may be in tough circumstances too. You may be feeling, There's no way out, the best I can do is try to get by. Is God saying something like, "Mighty warrior," to you? God's view of you is far bigger than the way you see yourself because of the help He is prepared to give. God has a gracious plan, not just for you to survive this hard time, but to thrive and then lift others up.
Change the channel to His voice. It is always the voice of hope and promises.
Romans 4:17
That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, "I have made you the father of many nations."* This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.
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(NIV) describes God as the One "who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not."Obedience is agreeing with Him. He is making all things new.
He came to a final point and said, “Do you know your apps may not actually be closed, even when you think you have closed them? They may still be running in the background without you knowing it and be a strong source of battery drainage.”
Wow! I wondered how you close an app more perfectly than just closing it. He said I needed to find the screen showing my last use of the app and “swipe up.” I did as he said and found several app screens. One by one, I swiped them upward brushing them off the phone screen, which he instructed would fully close them.
Later in the day, I was walking and felt the Holy Spirit draw this phone experience to mind and use it as a means to teach me. “You know,” He said, “When you feel you cannot hear Me or fully focus on Me, when you have trouble sleeping restfully at night, you are like your phone.”
I began to reflect on this simple thought and realized what the Spirit was teaching me – my preoccupation with worries about various things, my constant thoughts about troubles (when that happens), is similar to having a lot of open apps. My battery, that is my heart, zeal, energy, and hope, all get drained because heavy thoughts are all running in the background of my mind. I am trying to solve my problems on my own in those moments. I am focused on the negative and not on the Lord.
“Aha! Thank you, dear Spirit,” I thought to myself. I need to swipe my apps upward, that is I need to “cast all these cares upon Him because He cares for me.” 1 Peter 5:7
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
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The difficulties of life and our thoughts about them can become something we obsess about. In this state of mind, we run down, become weakened and weary. The writer of Hebrews said we should “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” And the writer’s advice was to accomplish this by “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2 NIV
In other words, it’s renewed faith that puts our eyes on Jesus. The beauty of this is that Jesus is the author (the giver) of faith and He perfects (grows it up) in us. Our only task is to put our eyes on Him and take them off the troubles. Putting our eyes on Him comes from prayer, praise and worship, community life in a good church, reading of the Word – and doing that all simply as His child.
We raised our children for many years on a large piece of land that had once been farm property. We built a home, put in a garden, and created a pond behind the house.
The pond had a dock and the Extension Service helped us to stock the pond with bass, catfish, and bluegill. The kids loved to fish. One time our daughter caught two fish on one lure!
But with the joy came some issues. One of them was algae growth. Oh my, it was concerning to see the green “globs” increase and threaten to overtake our beautiful fishing spot.
My husband went to the feed store and talked with one of the men there. He recommended a product that, with just a small amount poured into the water, could swiftly destroy the algae.
The product was amazing. Within short order, every bit of algae was gone. No more masses of green organisms choking the pond. The water was clear and pristine again.
I thought of this recently in relation to ministering to people with difficult emotional problems. I spend time with recovering addicts, helping them to get free. The life they have led, the pain experienced through personal choices, and the harsh things that have been done to them often result in a spectrum of spiritual attacks on their minds. Feelings of rejection, shame, isolation, abandonment by God and others, and many more distorted thoughts threaten to suffocate the clear living water of the Spirit and the presence of Christ for them.
Just as the algae attempted to overcome the clear water of our pond, so these thoughts, alien to God’s thoughts, threaten to suffocate the hearts and minds of people oppressed by them. Even many mature Christians struggle.
But we have a “product” too, that can, even with a small amount, slip into the clouded waters of our thoughts and eat away the lies. That product is the word of God. The Lord has reminded me recently that though it is unpleasant to have to do spiritual warfare and get up and fight yet again, the truth of the matter is the One who will really do the fighting is Him. When we feel beset by cloudy, hurtful, or unhealthy feelings, all we need to do is run to His arms, pick up the Word, and once again drop some of it into our circumstances. So we decree:
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know him.
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I am "accepted in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:6
So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.*
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“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21
For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,* so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
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I say, “I am loved and I belong to God. I am righteous in God’s sight always as a believer in Christ Jesus.” These new, true thoughts begin to consume and drive out the lies.
When we just put a drop of truth into our minds by decreeing the Word instead of giving into the relentless attack from the enemy, (which we think is simply our emotions) the waters of our mind’s thinking begin to clear. God fights for us and we get back up on our feet, reinvigorated, hope restored.
Introducing the Devotion book God Calling, A.J. Russell wrote:
There is a legend that the praise for building the Cathedral of St. Sofia was not given to the Emperor Constantine but to Euphrasia, a poor widow who drew from her mattress “a wisp of straw and gave it to the oxen” that drew the marble from the ships. That was all, she did nothing more. 1
With those words, he reminds us of the phrase from Zechariah 4:10
Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand." (The seven lamps* represent the eyes of the LORD that search all around the world.)
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, “Who despises the day of small things?”
Well, plenty of us do.
I have often heard Christians console someone when a great setback has occurred by saying, “Ah, it’s because God has a greater plan for you.”
Or, if someone is discouraged about their present work or ministry, they will say, “I KNOW God has a bigger plan for me. I keep praying for Him to send it.”
These may seem to be harmless messages of encouragement, but is that the witness of scripture that something bigger and better is always waiting down the road for the faithful? Our Savior came to us as a poor man, not as a king. He was terribly unimpressed with the Temple and all its glitz, but deeply concerned with people, often one at a time. Why do we think our road should be paved while His was rutted, or that this necessarily brings life?
For us to think we must achieve something big in the eyes of the world in order to matter is to deny the beautiful truth of Luke 21:1-2
While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.*
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. In a magnificent Temple complex, filled with milling worshipers, some rich, Jesus saw a widow.
The word for “saw” often means a deeper kind of seeing – knowing, perceiving, grasping. Jesus saw this inconsequential woman, and not only His attention, but His praise adorned her – not others.
This is such an important concept. Too many of us get caught up in future and grand thinking. “The Lord is going to give me a great ministry down the road. Then I will matter to Him and to others.” We may not think it just that way, but is that why our hearts can reject our daily service as only a prelude to the “real thing?”
The danger in being caught up in “someday I will do a great thing for God” is that we may miss the frequent and daily opportunities to serve Him which may make an extraordinary impact for the Kingdom.
The Lord impressed this thought upon my heart recently through a painful, 25-year-old memory. Years ago, we rescued a puppy from the woods and he became a beloved, but persistently playful pet. Always, he was “on the move.” I was aspiring to grow in my musical ability, practicing piano constantly, dreaming of being so much more than the “ordinary” piano teacher I thought I was. There was no harm in striving for excellence. It’s just that one day, for the umpteenth time, our young dog banged my leg with his rubber chicken, inviting me to play while I was trying to memorize a difficult piece. Annoyed, I put him outside. Stray dogs engaged him to run and that day we lost him as he was hit by a car.
The Lord reminded me that my devastation was not only due to losing my pet, but also to regret because I was striving so hard to matter to somebody that I could not stop to play with the sweet dog He had put in my life. Through this wisp of a memory, He pointed to other ways I still strain to earn value. “You don’t have to perform to be loved,” I felt Him say. “You are safe. Trust Me. Let Me love you and out of the overflow, give. No matter how small your daily gifts may seem, I see them and a chorus of praise rises up over each one.”
We must remember this in our walk with Jesus. If we fix our eyes on being noticed by people, on achieving greatness, we will probably miss the multiple opportunities to minister that He puts right under our noses. It isn’t that excellence or that growth of ministries is unimportant, it’s that our Lord is one who delights in “two small coins” given in love.
1. AJ Russell, ed., God Calling, (Uhrichsville: Barbour Publishing, 1998)
I have the joy of being a grandmother for the first time. My grandchild is a little over five months, a wonderful age, so small and dependent, yet she is giggly and full of sweet smiles, wanting to explore. Even now, she attempts to “jump” down from grandma’s arms and find out what’s available around her, pushing hard with her tiny legs. But she is still very little, so life is basically a round of bottles, naps, and diaper changes; then we repeat! Twice a week she comes to spend a few hours after lunch with me until her parents come home from work.
I have noticed something as I’ve begun to learn her “signals.” When she starts to get sleepy after her latest bottle, she’ll struggle to let go and rest. She will begin to settle down in my arms and her eyelids will droop, but then she cries out, wrestles in my arms, burrows her face into my chest and spits out her pacifier, fighting the whole process. I put the pacifier back in her mouth, she settles for a moment and then begins to rear up and wriggle and fight relaxing, crying out all the while. This whole process can take several minutes and much grandma arm strength!! But, as she fights relaxing, I don’t find myself impatient with her. On the contrary, my heart is moved with tenderness and I quietly soothe her with my voice and caress her with my hands until she calms down. When finally she allows herself to sleep, my love pours out even more as I see the sweet curves of her tiny face; as her little fingers wrap around one of my large ones. She’s not doing anything to gain this love. I simply love her because I love her.
God spoke to my heart the other day, “Can you see how I feel about you from this picture of yourself with this child? You wrestle and fret and doubt at so many points…struggling in my arms, not believing that I can perfectly hold you and care for you…wondering if my love really does endure forever, but it does. How can you think I would ever give you up? Your love for your grandchild is but a human reflection of my more perfect love for you. Rest in Me. Truly trust Me. Be still and wait on Me.”
Now, perhaps you perfectly trust God at every moment no matter what is going on, but my hunch is that like me and probably all of us, there are times when circumstances are so difficult, you wonder if God can still be there, and if He is, does He care? Or perhaps you feel you have failed Him – your sin is far too great - or you have not done enough to please Him. Maybe in your life, you’ve had so many come and go who you thought you could trust, but they’ve let you down, left you lonely. “How could God be different than others who have abandoned me?” you wonder with sadness. It is natural, in this flesh, to have our moments of fretting rather than resting in God’s arms. But, so much in scripture helps to calm those fears and heal our troubled hearts:
“Jerusalem says, ‘The Lord has deserted us; the Lord has forgotten us.’ Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:14-15
Yet Jerusalem* says, "The LORD has deserted us; the Lord has forgotten us." "Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!
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“Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble … No! ... I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.” (Romans 8:35-38
Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep."*) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,* neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love.
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Read the promises in His Word. They are steady. Emotions are not. Rest in His arms and believe that He loves you with a love that is beyond your understanding and without end.
Years ago, we moved to Kansas so that my husband might take a job. Up to this point, we lived east of Atlanta on a few heavily wooded acres. Our babies were born and brought home to our cedar-sided cabin with its broad front porch. This place was a little “piece of heaven” for us – a small acreage surrounded by neighbors, some in subdivisions, others on their own few acres. Many afternoons, I hiked across the pasture of the neighboring land to see my best friend, Barbara, and her boys. With this move to Kansas, we longed to capture the same lifestyle – a country home with plenty of neighbors, yet a spacious place to raise children. We set out to explore land north of the metro area.
I remember how my heart sank as we drove up and down county roads. This was not the dense greenery of Atlanta. Field after broad, flat, farm field stretched before my eyes, houses only here and there. I thought, “If we choose this, what will life be like? Where will I find friends, playmates OUT HERE?” My husband would have a long commute into the city and most days would be spent without his company or help. Yet, he seemed so set on intensifying our country experience. I tried hard to remain enthused.
We did choose this area and moved temporarily into a home in a subdivision near a small town. My husband was not yet satisfied. He still wanted to be “out farther.” He perused want ads looking for land until he finally found a wonderful deal, the size acreage that he yearned for at a fair price. Now, I love the country too. I just feared isolation and loneliness.
I remember the first time we drove by to look at this great find. “What a mess!” was my first thought. There was a “basement house” – some form of primitive earth contact house, only it looked like a concrete bomb bunker. There was a falling down barn. I could only imagine how many brown recluse spiders were holding a convention in it! Piles of trash, broken fences, and barb wire entangled in hedge rows were everywhere.
My husband saw something beyond the present, however. As the old barn was pushed down into a pond site, the basement house buried, and the fences cleared, we poured a foundation. The day finally came when we sat in white wicker rockers on the front porch, the flower beds filled with bridal wreath spirea, iris, and much more. We had a beautiful home and little children from town and church and even from down the road became new friends.
I have often thought of my first response and my husband’s response to the land as symbolic for how we react to many of life’s experiences. How differently we see our circumstances depending on “the eyes” we are using. When we see things in the natural, we may see nothing, obstacles, or more sorrow and think, “Nothing good can come from this. Nothing will change. There is no hope. It can’t get better.” When we look with “natural” eyes, our hearts can be so heavy. But what happens when we look at the same picture with “spiritual” eyes, the eyes of faith? I so often think of the book of Hebrews and its writer’s wonderful description of Abraham:
"By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” (Hebrews 11:1
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
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“As good as dead!” Can’t you see old Abraham looking down at age-spotted hands and over at Sarah, seeing more of the same, scratching his head, yet proclaiming, with all his heart, “The One who made this promise is FAITHFUL. I choose to believe!!”
Today, if you are discouraged, seeing your circumstances as if they are an “old house and a broken down barn,” may the Lord help you see what can rise up out of what looks only like ruins. Choose to believe His promise that He has “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
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