Follow Through Foundation

Happy November!

The last 2 months I have been in a study writing about learning God’s voice. It has been an eye-opener for me and lit a fire under fizzling flames that I hadn’t tended to in a while.

I hope you’ve found some encouragement with me as we’re all in different phases of life and walking differing paces on the same journey to learn more about hearing God speak in our lives!

To wrap up this series, God has tugged on my heart reminding me of one critical piece to learning His voice:

Follow through.

Whenever we hear something from God in our time with Him, it is an amazing experience. Whether it’s something we’ve longed to hear, caught us off guard, or dreaded the sound of, it’s communication with God!

But let us be so careful not to get caught up in chasing one experience after another and never doing what He’s told us to do. Christ warns us against this kind of living in Luke 6:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” Luke 6:46-49 (ESV)

To hear God and follow through with what He’s told us is having a foundation nothing can touch no matter what comes our way. But if we hear Him in our lives, learn His voice, and do not take seriously what He says to us, we will have a foundationless home filled with experiences that never grew any roots because we didn’t follow through.

And when tough times come, we will lie in ruins.

I can think of a number of times where I’ve heard God tell me something and I brushed it off because I didn’t want to take the time, I was too scared, or just didn’t take it seriously enough.

And I think to make myself feel better about not following through, I thought of those times as “missed opportunities”. But that’s not true to what Christ is telling us in this passage.

Hearing God’s words and doing them is an unshakable foundation in our faith and relationship with Christ.

Hearing God’s words and not doing them is impending destruction.

There is no middle ground.

The stakes are higher than just “missed opportunity”.

It’s interesting to me that if you go back to the story of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3, the very first thing God tells Samuel on his first time ever hearing from Him is 1-bad news that was hard to hear, and 2-something he soon saw happen with his own eyes.

God told Samuel that He was going to punish Eli and his house for allowing his sons to blaspheme God as they had been.

In the passage, it’s clear that Samuel was afraid to share what he had heard God tell him, because he knew this was not welcomed news.

We need to watch ourselves that we aren’t only seeking to hear God tell us what we want to hear. He’s not always going to confirm our own thoughts.

If that’s all we’re open to hearing, then there’s no reason for us to seek God’s voice.

Imagine if the only time my 3-year-old, Ace, listened to me was if it was in line with what he wanted to hear. He’d never listen to directions or warnings contrary to what he wants to do, even when it’s to protect him.

In our new home, we have a porch that faces the road that our house is on. For most people, this is a common circumstance. But, for my boys who have only ever known the old place we used lived in, it’s a completely new concept. They’re used to our old home where the door opened to the backyard, and they rarely ever went up to the road. There was a good 100 meters of driveway before they even would reach the road.

Here, they need to learn that they can’t go running out on the street in front of the house because cars go by!

Ace is my runner. He has one speed, and it’s fast.

If I’m yelling STOP! before he runs into the road and he hears me, that’s only half the battle. I need him to listen to what I’m asking of him and follow through– stop running towards the road.

If my son hears me yet wants to keep going and does, he’s going to get hurt.

We need to be careful this isn’t what our prayer life looks like when we learn and hear God’s voice. If we hear Him speaking to us, warning us to stop something or asking us to do something that isn’t our plan or desire, we need to trust it’s for our own good and follow through. Even if it’s not something you wanted to hear.

If God’s taking the time to speak to you, it’s important enough for you to listen.

Samuel got to see God’s words play out before his eyes in the days to come after He had his first experience listening to God’s voice.

I have to believe this built Samuel’s confidence in knowing it truly was God who spoke to him.

How much of God’s Hand have we missed seeing with our own eyes because we simply didn’t follow through with something He asked of us?

Or didn’t keep our gaze on Him long enough in expectancy to see Him do what He said?

What if sometimes the only way you’re going to be confident that you’re truly hearing God’s voice is if you follow through with what He’s told you, and then see Him move the way He told you He would?

Learning and hearing God’s voice in our lives is a pivotal pursuit in our walk with Him, but it should not be our final destination.

We have to be intentional that in our longing to hear and know God’s voice, we respond to what God is telling us when we do hear Him.

We open our hearts to listen and we move our feet to respond.

From one of His children to another,

Christi