Hearing from God

I try not to be a Sunday-only Christian.

I figure- you are either in it or not. Until I was about 18 I would have considered myself catholic. I don't think that all catholics are Sunday-only people but I do feel like that is what I observed growing up. What's better than Sunday-only people are holidays-only people, people who only go to church on important holidays like Easter and Christmas. I am not knocking, I'm just saying that at some point I decided I wanted more than that. My faith began to grow as a result and it was good.

I really became a Christian in college. It was my desert place, if you will. I didn't feel like I fit in and I was away from everyone I loved. I held fast to Jesus and I was renewed. In the years since college I have grown that much closer to God and, although I have a long ways to go, I don't feel recognizable compared to the person I used to be. I think this is good too.

 I always thought that God would never speak to me. For one, He of course doesn't do stuff like that anymore and for two, why would He speak to me, I am nothing.  I have realized that God does still speak to people, but they just have to be listening. There were two different times in the recent past that I felt like God had spoken to me. It wasn't a big booming voice "AMBER, DO THIS!" Think of the story with Elijah's encounter with God- God was not in the gusting wind or an earthquake, He was in a gentle breeze, like a quiet whisper. Both times that I feel like God spoke to me it was an urging, a surge of overwhelming emotion that almost caused me to speak before thought about some very serious stuff. This "stuff" I am still praying about but I will update as needed.

Today I taught kids church and the lesson was about being obedient to God and the story came from Luke 5 where Jesus calls on the first disciples. I had about 12 kids in class, ages 6-12. I said "raise your hand if you are ready to leave your video games and your skate boards and your mom and dad to go follow Jesus right now." I didn't see too many hands. I went on to explain that Jesus isn't physically with us right now to call us to physically go follow him wherever He leads but we need to listen for God to speak into our hearts what He would have us to do so that we can still follow where he is leading, even today.

People think that when you decide to follow Jesus, that it is going to be all cherries and lolly pops. Sometimes it couldn't be further from it. The good news is that faith is not stagnant. It is always moving and changing. We have a God that is active and loves us so much that He would "talk" to us. God is always working some good for those who love Him and He is calling us, like Jesus called his disciples, to work for Him. Our economy is shot but I heard His payment is..... the best.