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Certainty

It is not unusual for people to ask me how they can know for certain that God is speaking to them or leading them in a particular direction. Those of you who have studied Experiencing God will remember that God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, other Christians, circumstances to reveal Himself, His purposes and His ways. What we find in scripture is that people simply knew that God was speaking, they knew what He was saying, and they knew what God wanted them to do as a result of their encounter with Him.

I wonder if you were to go back and interview someone like Abraham, or Paul, could they explain their encounters with God in such a way that would take the mystery out of it? What if your spouse comes to you and says that God spoke to him or her in a dream and commanded your family to sell everything, pick up stakes, and move to the Navajo Indian reservation, get jobs and help start churches among the Navajo. You might say, "You're crazy. How do you know that this was God?" The response might be, "I just know. It's what I believe. I can't explain it any better than that."

Now, before you file for divorce and have your spouse committed, keep in mind this is precisely what happened to the people faith we read about on the pages of the Bible. Often the only confirmation they received was after the fact - after they had obeyed God and acted in faith, and then God brought about all He had promised, then they knew for certain that God was indeed leading them.

You will not ever be able to take the mystery out of your walk with the Lord. If you remain close to God and follow His ways, there will always be a sense of wonder. You will have to walk by faith and not by sight. Sight comes after the fact. This is going to be difficult for those of us who pray for certainty instead of faith. We often say to God we want more faith, but in our hearts what we really mean is "Lord, make us sure this is right."

The only way to manage the terror and insecurity of living this kind of life is to know the Lord intimately. The more you know of Him, the more you are able to trust Him, and the less frightening walking by faith will seem. But, again, this kind of intimacy with God is only learned through a walk of faith.

Everything in your walk with Christ will come down to this: do you know the Lord well enough to trust Him with everything, to risk everything, to lose everything?

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