Faith Works 6-15-19

Faith Works 6-15-19

Jeff Gill

 

Asking questions, getting answers

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Many years ago I heard a Christian preacher make a fairly dramatic assertion: ask God a question, and you can expect an answer.

 

He was a missionary, and said he had not only tested out this means of communication himself but he had counseled others to use it, and was not aware of a time it had not worked. Part of his message was to encourage we who were his listeners that day to venture into this means of communion, and of course the rest of it was to invite us to use this approach to see if we were called into missionary service.

 

I'll admit my attempt at the latter probably lacked sincerity at the time; what my more ambiguous response meant may have been that my calling into the mission field would be across the Indiana border into Ohio, and not an overseas posting which was more to his intention.

 

But the path to getting direct guidance from the Lord he commended to us, and I pass along as having a fair amount of validity in my life, is this: formulate a clear, direct, specific question for God, and ask it out loud, in prayer, for three days in a row. He claimed, and I would affirm, that you will get an answer by the end of that third day. It might come in a dream, it could be a startling coincidence, or even something someone says to you relatively unbidden or unexpectedly, and some report an auditory experience of hearing an voice speak to them. But when that odd occurrence or sense of an answer comes, you'll know it's the answer for which you requested.

 

There are, of course, many arguments to be made against this means of divine communication. The most common modern era answer is to say it's purely wish fulfillment. You want to hear an answer, you open yourself up to getting one, and your mind essentially creates one for you. No God (or god) needed.

A more therapeutic reaction is that you or your subconscious knows what the answer is to the question you've probably been mulling for some time, and this three day's asking lowers some of your internal barriers to hearing what the right path is for you. Pragmatically, there's a criticism referred to as pareidolia – seeing patterns where there are none, like the face of Elvis in Mars surface photography, or the image of a rabbit on the Moon. Apophenia is similar, seeking out connection where there aren't any, and yes, it can be a form of madness as you start to hear everything as part of some vast conspiracy.

 

So it's understandable if some pause to look at what might be a pious exercise and ask those of us practicing it: is this just a hard-wired tendency of the evolved brain and nervous system to help us pick up on environmental cues, be alert to predators and remember food sources, and simply to survive? A fair question.

 

But the counterpart is the set of presuppositions we bring to such a discussion. If you start from "there is no God" and hence no one speaking to us, then you immediately look for other answers to how some say they find guidance and wisdom and peace. Likewise, if you turn every passing breeze or muttered observation from passers-by into divine commands, you can find yourself in a whirl of constant confusion.

 

What I've found to be valid is a simple question, framed in the most concrete terms I can manage (not "will there ever be peace in our time?" but more of a "should I go this direction, or that one, to find peace?"), and to prayerfully and respectfully ask on three successive days for guidance on that inquiry.

 

Here's where the psychological or materialistic or therapeutic interpretations don't go away, but I'll warn the spiritually minded that it can still turn out in some unexpected ways. Sometimes, in this three day practice, I find that as the days go by, my question becomes more clearly irrelevant. I realize it just doesn't matter the way I thought it did. Was that God answering? I think it was.

 

And indeed some answers take you where you didn't expect to go. After being called to Ohio out of seminary, my wife and I ended up somewhere else for a few years. Our lives were clearly at a turning point, and we had some very interesting options in front of us. I asked for three days, and got an answer that was not one of the options I thought I was asking about.

 

I got told to go back to Ohio! Was that God speaking? Over the last two decades, I've become ever more certain that is so.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he doesn't always know what to do, but usually his wife sets him straight. You can try if you like at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.