You Know and You Know You Know It 1/14/2016

"Why do you complain to him
    that he responds to no one’s words?
 For God does speak—now one way, now another—
    though no one perceives it.
In a dream, in a vision of the night,
    when deep sleep falls on people
    as they slumber in their beds,
 he may speak in their ears
    and terrify them with warnings,
to turn them from wrongdoing
    and keep them from pride,
to preserve them from the pit,
    their lives from perishing by the sword."
Job 33:14-18 (NIV)

When Job famously experienced some of the worst tragedies known to man, he eventually began to question God.  He justified himself, wondered aloud to his friends why God was punishing him and most importantly complained about God's lack of response (Job 33:8-13).

So often we find ourselves in Job's frame of mind.  We think more of ourselves than we ought.  While in the moment we think our circumstance is worse than it really is.  And when our faith fails, we somehow think that God is not only absent but unaware.

Beloved, what we must know and believe is that God is all present, all knowing and all powerful.  There is nothing that escapes His eye (Matthew 10:29-31).  Not only does He know your situation and hear your cries, He answers!  Have you ever come to the crossroads of a decision to do right or wrong and hear that voice in your head saying, "Now you know what you should do don't you?"  Have you ever gone to bed with a dilemma and arisen the next morning with a decision about what you will do?  Have you ever gone to a friend with a problem, hoping that they would tell you what you wanted to hear only to have them tell you what you actually needed to hear?

You see, God speaks to us in many ways.  If we do not know it consciously, we most certainly know it subconsciously.  In fact many of us refer to this phenomenon as our conscience, typically depicted by an angel on our shoulder arguing against the devil on the other one.  My mom always taught me to do what I know is right.  It turns out that she received that advice from God (James 4:17).  The fact is that we know right from wrong and good from bad and we make our own choices.  The more spiritually mature among us know that God is present with us and offers us guidance every day of our lives.  Though we may fail to realize it, or worse, claim to the contrary, God knows, hears and answers.  We know it.  We know we know it.  We just need to listen attentively and stop giving ourselves excuses to do other than what we know is right as we accuse Him of not being present.  He is.

Practically speaking,

Lee