It takes longer than you expect. God’s timing is agonisingly slow. There are times when you will find yourself yelling at him in sheer frustration and resentment. The main reason for your angst is that you think God’s timing is only about you.

But you are far too small-minded. God is always planning, strategizing and orchestrating to involve others – some of whom you don’t even know yet. He is thinking years down the track. He is planning for variables that you cannot begin to conceive right now.

One day you will understand the reasons for his apparent slowness. But for now, it’s best not to try to manipulate his promises. Let the timing go, grow in patience and trust him.

It is harder than you think. You don’t realise that when you pray those radical ‘surrender-prayers’ that God will take them very, very seriously. That he will literally ask you for everything. Your home, your friends, your money; your deepest desires. The steps of obedience will be more painful than you can imagine, but they will become your deepest sources of joy. They will open wide doors of opportunity and of profound self-discovery that will transform you forever. You will see that they are necessary to form you into the person you were created to be. You will never regret them.

It is better than you could ever imagine. You want to make a difference. You want your life to be significant. That’s great.

But the greater thing is that God has a future for you that extends way beyond how you think right now. Your dreams are so limited. The thoughts you have are locked in by your past experiences and they will always be confined by what you see around you.

Unlike you, God sees into the realm of the supernatural; his plans are not bound by earthly constraints. He lives in a place where there are no impossibilities. As you partner with him, your dream will grow and change in ways that will leave you breathless and in awe.

Never give up following him. Seek him first. Every step you take, every act of obedience; every sacrifice – will be well worth it. You will receive deeply personal gifts  from God that will stir you to tears; you will experience miracle stories that will make you laugh and you will enjoy rich fulfillment at the core of your being. And you will find that knowing God personally and hearing his voice will be the greatest reward of all.

It is one of the most common questions people line up to ask me after a service – (that is… straight after the cheeky; ‘How old are you?’ question…) What is the secret to hearing from God? How to I get God to talk to me more? More often? more clearly? and with greater revelation? 

We love those kind of questions. What we want is a nice simple answer: do this one thing and voila – there it is! You’re hearing God’s voice. All you have to do is; follow these three steps, plug in this easy formula, take this advice… And there you have it: A life that is punctuated by the supernatural transforming dynamic voice of the Holy Spirit!

It’s a good question, but perhaps it’s not the best question. Answering it is a bit like summing up in a sentence the key to a successful marriage, or the ‘secret’ to a great friendship; or the way to a functional family life. What we need to understand is that hearing from God happens in the context of a relationship. He is a personal God and love is at the core of his personhood. So the same principles apply in relating to him. In the same way I develop my relationships on earth, I develop my relationship with God.

So let me direct the question back to you. Think about what makes your earthly relationships open, trusting and free. Think about what it takes to build good communication with your peers, friends and partners. Then apply it to your relationship with God. Now you have the secret…

Is it ever going to happen? Is God powerful enough? Will he do what he said?

Ugly torturous doubts.  Intruding our thoughts. Rattling our carefully constructed plans. We all have them. And mostly we feel bad about having them. If I had more faith, I wouldn’t doubt… right? 

Well maybe not.

Think again. We live in a physical body in a natural world. Our senses are keenly tuned to the tangible; our minds to the rational. When God speaks, he invites us to connect with the spiritual world. An invisible world. A realm we cannot see or understand with our natural eyes… A world that usually contradicts the future reality God has promised.

In fact experience has taught me that whenever God speaks something significant, a reversal in circumstances will almost immediately follow… If it was unlikely before, now it’s going to take a miracle for it to happen. Which of course is exactly the point.

God is trying to teach us something.

He wants to show us that his words are powerful. That they carry supernatural ability to empower, transform and create.

As carriers of his words, we now have to learn to live in his reality – not ours. We have to understand that what has been declared in the heavenlies is more real than what we see with our physical eyes. We have to believe that in the right time and with our co-operation, we will see his words manifested on earth.

That means sometimes we are going to feel a little crazy. The disconnect between what we see around us and what God has said is going to create some tension. And some doubt.  It takes a little getting used to – this naturally supernatural life. It’s going to shake us up a bit. But that’s God’s ways. His words are always going to sound unusual to our human ears. In fact they are almost laughable:

Like calling me to give all my money away when I was just about to move overseas.

Like saying he was about to give me a job in a place where there were no vacancies.

Like showing me a house to live in that I could never find.

And like telling a very old man he was going to give birth…

Abraham had doubts. “But how Lord can this be?” (Genesis15:2-3; 16:1-2) I love that the Bible says Abraham ‘faced facts’ (Romans 4:19). Faith is not denial. Abraham’s body was ‘as good as dead’ and so was Sarah’s. 100 years old. Impossible.

But then Abraham had a choice to make – what to do with his doubt: Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:20-21)

Doubt will be the inevitable consequence of living the God-life. We will all experience it. But when we do, follow the example of Abraham. Face facts. Acknowledge the natural. Then make a choice. Believe that God’s words rise above the natural and that he does have the power to do what was promised.

The God life is a supernatural life. When God speaks oceans part, impossible battles are won and life rises out of death. Walking with God means that we will live differently. We will see miracles in the midst of everyday situations. But what happens when God doesn’t speak? When we are faced with decisions or projects and we don’t have any overt leading from God?

When God doesn’t speak into the specifics of our situation, we do the natural commonsense thing. We do what we are gifted to do. We do what we want to do within the parameters of what is wise and good. We consult people. We listen to the opinions of experts. We get busy and we get smart. We don’t just sit on our hands and say; “if it is God, it will happen.”

David was an ancient king who knew how to live the God life. He saw the supernatural hand of God catapulting him from a lonely shepherd’s field to the most powerful position in Israel. He saw the miraculous as he defeated a foreign giant with a mere slingshot. But when he settled in Jerusalem, he sought to do what every ancient king did when establishing their kingdom – build his palace and then build a temple for his God. At the time he shares his intent with his godly royal advisor, Nathan;

After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.” Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.” (2 Samuel 7:1-3)

David wanted to build a temple. It was a time of peace and he had the means and resources to do it. There was a need for a temple in the city and David was able to meet it. It was the normal natural thing for a king to do. And Nathan’s response is: “Do what is in your heart to do…”

God has given us minds, abilities and resources. We are free to do what is in our heart and in our hands to do! God uses our abilities and our desires – since he designed us to do good works which he planned in advance for us… (Ephesians 2:10)

What is on your heart? There is freedom to go do it! You don’t need a word from God for everything in life. You see a need; you have the ability and the passion; go and do it for the Lord is with you!

But as you go, submit your plans to God. Ask his favour on your ideas. Continue to listen to his voice guiding and directing you.

Soon after David’s conversation with Nathan, God spoke specifically about the temple. Even though it was on David’s heart, God said no. For different reasons, this project was for his son Solomon – not for David.

When God speaks, the game-plan changes. What is on our heart must conform to what is on God’s heart. We don’t build a temple when it is not ours to build. We don’t disobey the voice of God by listening to the voices of others…

The God life is supernatural. But it is also natural. It involves all of our skills, all of our resources and all of our effort. The God life is not a crutch for someone who uses only one leg! Partnering with God means that we give our best in our natural selves, while he he gives what he does best - the supernatural! 

It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at the outskirts of the crowded city. Their sandaled feet were dusty and swollen from long days walking through a thankless wilderness. The young couple glanced about searching for a place to enquire for lodging. Unfamiliar sounds and foreign tongues added to their disorientation. A restless baby cried hungry for milk while his mother rummaged through their hastily packed belongings. The anxious expression on their weary faces hinted at their concerns: How long would they be here for? When would they return to their homeland? 

I imagine the small talk as the weary travelers were introduced:

“Greetings! You’ve come a long way. Where are you from?”

“From our home in the land of Israel.”

“Whose family are you of?”

“The tribe of Judah.”

“And what brings you here to Egypt?”

Have you ever wondered about the locals’ reaction to Mary and Joseph’s story? One mysterious dream led them to completely relocate to a foreign country. If this young couple had never given attention to a divinely-inspired dream, we would not be celebrating Christmas the way we do today. But in the Greco-Roman world of the first century, it wasn’t unusual for gods to speak in dreams. This was nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

Like Mary and Joseph, it was a God-dream that led me to move to an unknown city some years ago. At the time I found it exciting. God was speaking so clearly and specifically! But when I began to share my story with others, eyebrows were raised and brows furrowed with concern. I realized I had been quickly labeled; placed in that box where all fringy mystical types go…

So I stopped telling people the real reason why I was moving. They didn’t seem to get it.

God-given dreams are found all the way through the Christmas story. The gospel writer Matthew records five of them. Apart from a dream, the baby Jesus would have been murdered! In fact, some of the most pivotal moments in biblical history began in the middle of the night while someone was sleeping.

So why the negative response to a contemporary parallel of Mary and Joseph’s experience? Why the gap between a beloved biblical story and our own spiritual reality?

A look back over our shoulder tells us why. At one time in history hearing from God through dreams was the norm. The prophets of the Old Testament heard from God through dreams regularly. The early church valued them for direction and revelation and the early church fathers all wrote of their dream experiences.

Then came the Enlightenment. A new emphasis on intellectual rationalism led church leaders to relegate dreams and visions to the archives of library shelves. Translators even left out references to dreams and visions made by the early church fathers in their English editions!

To our modern Western ears, talk of dreamers and dream interpreters seems to fall perilously close to New Age practises. But our fear of being deceived or getting it wrong has led us to abandon one of the most popular forms of God’s communication. In fact the ability to hear from God through dreams and visions is one of the key distinctives of the new covenant (Acts 2:17)!

There is no doubt hearing from God through dreams has its risks. But God has given us his Word, the Holy Spirit and his church as safety nets for us. With the right tests and accountability, we can experience the transforming and powerful dynamic of hearing God’s voice speaking into the very details of our lives through dreams. This is our inheritance as new covenant Christians. Are you ready to hear from him? Be ready for him to surprise you with his creative messages of the night!

“Nearly everyone on earth knows that God reveals himself to people most often in dreams.” (Tertullian, 2nd C AD)

You don’t need to be a Christian to have good life. Plenty of my friends live a great life without God. They are well educated, hold successful jobs and live in beautiful homes. Their relationships are healthy and they go on nice overseas holidays. For the most part they enjoy happy and contented lives even with a few bumps along the way. 

In our Western world it’s not difficult to have a good life. There are common sense decisions we can make, self-help books to read and plenty of resources at our disposal. We are blessed in this country with prosperity and opportunity. Even with a bad start, you can turn things around if you work hard enough and make good choices.  

But God has a very different life for those who choose to follow him. It’s a good life but it’s not an ordinary life. The ‘God life’ is far from ordinary – that is if you choose to live it.

Abraham was living the good life nearly four millennia ago. His life was prosperous and successful, and in his time could be described as normal. That is until God spoke to him… He described a different future for Abraham. He said he would be blessed, have a new home in a land of great significance and he would become the father of a nation.

The ‘God life’ starts like that. Once we begin a relationship with God, we need to hear him speak about our lives. God does nothing without first speaking it (Amos 3:7). His words are powerful and contain supernatural ability to fulfill themselves. They have the power to change circumstances, transcend time and override the natural world. When we listen and receive them, they initiate a life that is no longer normal. It is a life marked by the supernatural… A life undergirded by faith and vision, where impossibilities become easy and limitations are laughable… It’s a place where dreams reach far beyond our human imaginations. It’s a good life, but it’s far more than good.

Though Abraham had signed up for the God-life, he was still tempted to live normally. Even after we hear from heaven, the God-life is challenging because it demands us to change the way we do things. God had promised Abraham that a nation would come from him but he and his wife Sarah were too old to bear even one child. So Abraham did the normal thing you would do under the circumstances. He followed the custom of his day and bore a child with Hagar his maidservant. Naturally it worked. He gave birth to a son, Ishmael.

But it was a mistake of course. The words of God are never fulfilled in an ordinary way – we are called to believe in a God who overrides normal situations. When God’s promise eventually came to pass for Abraham, it wasn’t in the ordinary way - Isaac was born as a result of a promise (Galatians 4:23). In fact it was a ridiculous miracle. Shocking to witness and undeniably supernatural… The tangible hand of God breaking through normal circumstances and providing unforgettable witness to the reality of God in an ordinary world.

We can all live a good life. But if we choose to listen to the voice of God and respond in faith to what he says, we will see God intervene in ways we could never dream. We will see the miraculous hand of God on our lives and experience a wow factor that nothing can compare with.

I love the good life, but I’m signed up for something far more extraordinary. Let’s be people who listen the voice of God and are prepared to respond in faith. Let’s never be content with the good life, but be people who choose to live the God life.

When I first started my church in Melbourne, God said that the season would last three years. At first I thought it wasn’t God. Surely he wouldn’t say such a thing! Why would God tell me the week I started that soon I would be leaving??

God is a future thinking God. He knows the end from the beginning; “from ancient times what is to come…” (Isaiah 46:10). His plans are sovereign, detailed and stunningly strategic and he loves to make them known to us.

We were promised this. When Jesus returned to heaven, he sent his Holy Spirit so that we would see the world through his eyes. We would be able to prophesy and have dreams and visions (Acts 2:16). We would see glimpses of the future and he would tell us; “great and unsearchable things we don’t know” (Jeremiah 33:3). This is the privilege of every New Covenant Christian… the honour of personally knowing a supernatural God – and it’s a wonderful blessing.

But in sharing his heart for our futures, God takes a risk. Can we be trusted with that kind of foreknowledge? It’s not always easy.

Knowing about the future leadership of my church meant keeping my mouth shut and using wisdom in conversations with others. It meant exercising great discipline to keep my heart living in the present.

Seeing the future also meant co-operating with it in faith. I led my church knowing that one day soon I would have to hand it over. That meant I lived differently. Little things like leaving my name off printed materials and more important decisions like raising up leaders quickly… planning for a long term future I knew I would never be a part of.

Sometimes while pastoring Elwood Life Church, I wished I didn’t know what was ahead. It was painful knowing my church would soon be handed over. God likened it to raising a foster child – if I treated it as a temporary situation, the ‘child’ would suffer. I must parent it as though it were mine forever even though in time I would need to pass it on. That was hard. It was difficult to give myself fully and it was painful to keep a secret. But God could trust me with that.

We love to hear stories of God showing us the future. We desperately want to know what’s around the corner. But can God trust us with his plans? With supernatural knowledge comes hidden responsibility. Sometimes it is better not to know. Sometimes it’s just easier to trust the wisdom of God about what is ahead. So before you ask, be ready to handle carefully what he says.

Of course the joy of knowing the future is watching God’s hand move supernaturally in the present. When the three years came to an end and it was time to leave, amongst the tears and farewells I saw God’s hand sovereignly moving the next season into place. I saw precision timing in my next job. I saw the strategies of heaven and miracles of provision. I enjoyed the grand privilege of seeing as God sees. And that makes it always worth it…

The M2 motorway was its usual frantic pace that morning… Cars backed up like dominos; sleepy drivers with dead-pan faces staring at the bumper bar in front of them. I smiled at the queues, feeling slight twinges of guilt at my smugness as I sped freely in the opposite direction. It was a 45 minute trip from inner Sydney to the western suburbs but I didn’t mind. Driving to work gave me time to prepare myself for the day. It was the beginning of a new year and I had much to think about.

Your job is about to change. I said it to myself over and over, processing it like a slow eater savouring a meal. I had been working as the Academic Dean at a ministry training college for nearly four years. Weekly lectures, course design, assessment standards and myriads of paperwork consumed my days. The race had been on to keep up with the burgeoning student numbers and I had loved the challenge. But lately things were settling around me and I could sense the itch of change.

My mind replayed the short but vivid dream I had just after Christmas. I had seen myself travelling on a train. I had fallen asleep and when I woke up, I was on a bus. We had changed vehicles.

I knew the dream was from God. It had that clarity and distinctiveness peculiar to God-given dreams. Vehicles move you along in life and often symbolize careers in dreams. There was a change from a train to a bus. Realisation dawned in the light of the morning. My job was about to change.

The Ultimate Counsellor

Most days it feels like we are the proud masters of our destiny. We take out insurance policies, invest in superannuation and carefully research our decisions in order to control risk and protect ourselves. But the next day we are struck by the woeful limitations of our humanity. In an instant our job changes, a relationship fractures or the stockmarket plummets, and we are struck again by the extraordinary unpredictability of our lives.

God stands outside of universes and timezones yet he is able to zoom in on our own private worlds with all its odd frustrations and struggles. He knows what will be, what cannot be and what needs to be. He sees the end from the beginning[i]; our yesterdays and tomorrows, yet somehow in the deep vaults of his knowledge, he knows and responds to the quirkiness of my personality, the hidden longings of my heart and the number of hairs on my head[ii].

In the midst of unpredictability, God longs to speak into our situations with a voice of constancy and wisdom. The Holy Spirit is described as a counselor[iii] – with one word he can bring clarity and calm to any situation. We just need to learn to listen. He speaks in surprising ways.

The Vehicle Changes

It took little time to find a car-park my first morning back to work; most staff were still on holidays. I checked my diary. College was out for two more weeks. I loved this time of the year: plenty of time for catch-up coffees and planning. My day was a quiet one: meeting-free apart from an appointment with my boss at 4pm.

Later that day my boss and I met in his office. We sat at his oval desk and chatted about the holidays. Eventually the conversation turned to plans for the new year. As part of our ongoing development, we were restructuring the College. Then the announcement: My job needed to change. I listened silently, peering into my coffee cup; finally digesting the information that I had been chewing on the previous few days. We discussed a few details and eventually he stood, signalling the meeting was over. He looked into the air for a moment and then made his concluding statement; “You know; it’s like we’re been on a train, but now we’ve changed vehicles!”

My job change was effected immediately and marked the beginning of a larger shift for my ministry. But through all the transition and upheaval that followed, there was no doubt that God’s hand was guiding and directing my life. His voice of foresight and wisdom had prepared me with the peace and understanding no earthly counsellor could give.

But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word? (Jeremiah 23:18)

Last week I had the opportunity to be interviewed on the “Sunday Night” program of ABC Radio. Our topic was the theology of faith and experience in the Pentecostal Churches, but we covered much more than that. (You can listen to the full program here: www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s3242022.htm). One caller rang in to share his perspective: “From what I know of Pentecostal churches, you’re supposed to check your intellect in at the door if you’ve got one… (But you all sound fairly reasonable people…)”

The other panelists and I laughed hard… Glad we came across as being ‘reasonable’! But in some ways his comments are not surprising. Apart from the somewhat distorted image Pentecostal churches have in our Australian media, his comments reflect a bit of a tension some see between faith and reason; between rationalism and the supernatural.

The modern Pentecostal church started as a working class movement with a hunger to see First Century miracles repeated in their day. It was almost a reaction against highly educated leaders who had rationalized supernatural phenomena away reducing them to metaphors and myths. Miracle stories were seen to be important for teaching and perhaps confirmation of Jesus’ divinity back then, but certainly not to be taken seriously as a pattern of what God could and should do today.

But there is no reason to pitch these two positions against one another. God is natural, but he’s also supernatural. He works through scientific processes and through natural causes. As Christians, we engage the mind; we use common sense and we do our historical and cultural homework before making decisions and forming theology.

But we do not worship a god who has been reduced to human limitations. We serve a supernatural God. For a Christian, healings, supernatural provision and prophetic experience are part of our ordinary everyday lifestyle.

At times that may mean we operate a little differently. Faith doesn’t always look reasonable and God often asks us to live beyond the commonsense realm. That means looking a little irrational at times, but it should not be surprising if we truly believe God is who he says he is.

I love a hearty academic discussion about the finer points of philosophy and theology. But I also love to see the hand of God tangibly and supernaturally. We can and should experience both. Being a Christian doesn’t mean taking leave of our senses, but rather fully engaging them, as well as experiencing things we will never be able to explain!

There are two stories being written over our lives. The story everyone sees and the story only you and God see.

The story that everyone sees is the one that is written on bios and resumes. It’s the one we tell at parties and interviews. She planted a church, worked in missions, has a Masters level qualification, speaks in churches around the world…

But there is another story. One that is equally dramatic, but far more hidden. One that is rarely told on stages or recorded on public memos. One that is usually only whispered in quiet moments, revealed in tucked away café corners and sometimes never told – even to ourselves.

Yet it is the one that matters most.

It’s the story of our dreams, our fears and our unspoken struggles. The internal journey of our thoughts and prayers. A plot line that is often more difficult to write, but which defines who we are and all that we do. If we ignore it, it will soon write its own story… and ultimately it will be the story that everybody sees.

It was the story beneath Joseph’s life that really mattered. His rollercoaster ride of failure and promotion from slave to Prime Minister would make headlines, but it was the internal drama of faith and loyalty that wrote the final climax.

The successes of Abraham’s life may be loudly acclaimed around the world, but it was the long painful tale of five altars atop a lonely mountain that would produce them.

I may have made some significant achievements in my life, but it has been the God-moments of revelation and conviction with God that have defined them.

What story are you writing today? Are you more concerned with the outer story of achievement and performance and image? The outer story can masquerade and embellish, but the inner one never can. The inner story always tells the truth and will pen the final story in the end.

Let’s be people that give more attention to our inner story. This is the one that is of greatest concern to God and in the end, it is the only one that matters.

Three Inner Story Questions to Ask Yourself:

§       What area of my life do I need to be honest with myself right now?

§       What is God speaking to me about?

§       What accountability partners am I able to entrust my inner story to?