Sounds like it's going to be a big 'ole thought out post doesn't it? Ah well, sorry to disappoint. Just thinking - thoughts rolling around in my head and I came up with this. Here's an interesting list of people who had a bad case of the "God told me's":
Abraham - yes, THE Abraham
Moses
Jesus of Nazareth (let's go big - a man like us too, remember)
Paul of Tarsus
All those freakish Apostles for that matter
Any of a number of dessert hermits
St. Patrick of Ireland
Any of a number of Irish monastic/missional folk
St. Francis of Assisi
St. Theresa of Avilla
St. Ignatius of Loyola
Lots and lots and lots of others, myself included
I may have a little bit of a point to this post. If so, it's this: Let's not toss out God speaking to people and telling/leading them to do things, go places, etc. It may be in some kind of private ecstatic state. It may be very much more "regular" than that. It may come through another person. However God is speaking specific things to us, let's just not throw that out the window as if it's some kind of crazy, fanciful nonsense. As I see it, I'd say, "well, of course God is at least trying to speak to all of us, lead us, guide us, move through us to do certain things - this is part of His whole plan of reintegrating us into His everyday Life."
So, of course! But of course (also), not everything you think you hear is God. Not every leading you believe is from Him, is indeed, from Him. Be about having a relationship with Him, with and in His People. Be about the business of being formed by Him. Don't sit around being about the business of "hearing" this or that all the time. We hear Him best as mature believers, as well-formed spiritual adults. So, don't be crazy about the thing, but also, don't be overly rational and skeptical about it either. I'm pretty certain He's always talking. Our "job" is to get in the way of what turns us into the kind of people who can always be hearing.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
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