Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Anointing and Hearing God’s Voice

Anointing and Hearing God’s Voice
by Jim Driscoll

Why is it that God’s voice seems easier to hear on certain days than it does on other days?

One reason could be that relationship with God is cyclical in the sense that He will draw near, and He will draw away. There are days when He just draws away. Most of us go through seasons in which we hear from God a lot and other seasons of “divine silence,” in which it seems like He isn’t speaking. This doesn’t happen because of us — because we’re failing to do something important or because we’re doing something wrong; it is a natural fluctuation of intimacy and separation. Leviticus specifies a similar dynamic between husband and wife that is driven by biological cycle.

If we are having difficulty hearing God’s voice, it could also be an issue of peace. We have a much harder time communicating with God when we are stressed, dealing with fear or if He is speaking to us about topics that are hard for us to believe or accept.

However, if our days and emotions remain basically the same, and one day we’re hearing clearly and the next day we aren’t, it most likely has to do with anointing.

The level of anointing in a person’s life tends to oscillate from one day to the next, from one week to the next. The anointing is what helps our brains recognize that what we are hearing or seeing is important. It stimulates our spiritual senses and makes us want to pay attention to God. We feel His presence, and we get excited. In a way, the anointing provides incentive for listening and spending time with Him.

When the anointing is high and God speaks to us, we are much more likely to recognize, This is God! I need to listen to this. But when the anointing is low, we may not realize anything happened.

His whisper is easy to ignore, and it isn’t inherently going to demand our attention. God says many things in moments of low anointing to see if we’re going to notice Him even when our minds don’t immediately register that something important is happening. On days of low anointing, hearing from God takes more work. He may be saying the same number of things He said the day before, but we will often wonder if He is speaking at all because the whisper can be so hard to discern.

This is why it is good for us to desire to hear Him more than we desire to be anointed, more than we desire to see results and more than we desire to feel comfortable or like we know what we’re doing. If we pay attention to everything we think might be from Him, even if we are uncertain in the moment, it will be much harder for us to miss His voice, no matter our current level of anointing or how quietly He is speaking.

For additional articles by Jim Driscoll check out Stir the Water
Additionally, I'm happy to recommend Jim's new book "The Modern Seer"



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