Monday 25 July 2016

How to hear

I have learned that I hear only what I want to hear - I dismiss everything else.

Understanding this truth is vital to learning how to hear God, says Peter Lord, author of Hearing God.

Lord says that, typically, we choose to shut out things we don't want to hear and pay attention to the things that interest us.

For example, he notes that a mother of an infant is programmed to hear every sigh or squirm of her child when sleeping at night.  She will wake up if something sounds wrong. And people living near airports will eventually filter out the sound of planes flying overhead.

Knowing this, we can train ourselves to filter out the things that turn us away from God and focus on the things that draw us closer.

But, Lord says, we must also respond and act on what we hear from God.  If we do, our minds and hearts will begin to hear more from God.

Of course, this presumes that we think hearing from God is important.  Jesus certainly thought so as he said in Mark 4:9: "Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand."

As Lord and others say, we can hear from God in a variety of ways - meditating on God's word, impressions the Holy Spirit drops in our minds, visions, dreams, and comments from others.

But hearing from God requires some effort on our part.  We need to go into training.

"If you begin prayer with the attitude that [hearing God] is an absolute necessity, vital to sustaining fellowship with Jesus, then you can be sure to make progress," writes Lord.

He suggests the acronym FIT - frequency, intensity, time - as a guide.  That means focusing often on what God has to say, taking time to be with God, and acting on what you hear.

Along with the normal things that distract us, Lord writes, we Christians often substitute videos, speakers, and books about God rather than on his words in the Bible and prayer.

Instead, we should spend time with God with a commitment to respond to what he tells us.

"The person who listens to God and responds positively will hear more from the Lord," he says.

At the same time, we must train ourselves to say "no" to the distractions and temptations that seek to dominate our minds when we seek God.

He suggests our response to God should include something practical right away.  If someone who needs help springs to our minds, we should "call, pray, write a letter, visit or do whatever action is appropriate".

As time goes on, we will find our ability to hear God increase.  As we act on what we hear, our lives will change.


Monday 18 July 2016

The last coin

Hudson Taylor knew his dream of evangelizing in China was filled with perils.

Taylor, who later founded the China Inland Mission, knew he would be pushed beyond his own strength and only God could carry him through.

So, he prepared in England by depending on God to meet his needs through prayer.

His aim was not to test God, but to strengthen his own faith.  He was like an Olympic runner who knows he can't win without training hard in advance of the race.

Taylor tells the story in his autobiography written decades after he had finally landed in China in 1854 following a dangerous sea voyage by sailing ship of over five months.

As I mentioned in my last post, Taylor became a believer at the age of 15 following the heartfelt prayers of his mother and sister.  In time, he became fascinated with China and was filled with a desire to go there as a missionary.

But first he decided to study medicine to be of practical use when he arrived there.  He became an apprentice to a Christian doctor, one step before entering medical school.

The doctor was a kindly man, but forgetful.  He started depending on Taylor to remind him when he should be paid.

Taylor had already chosen to give most of the little money he had away to needy people and to God's work in England.  He lived mainly on oatmeal and rice.  He knew he would likely live on very little in China.

He decided his "spiritual muscles" needed strengthening by relying on God to prompt the kindly doctor to remember to pay him.  He would pray and leave this matter in God's hands.

He told himself that, in China, he would have "no claim on anyone for anything - my only claim will be on God".

"How important, therefore," he thought, "to learn before leaving England to move man, through God, by prayer."

But the doctor forgot and Taylor found himself with only a single coin.

The following day, he was spending time sharing the good news in a poor area of London, when he came across a man who told him his wife was dying.  He asked Taylor to come with him to his home and pray for her.

He found the woman lying on a bed with four starving children standing by.  Then, he began wrestling mentally with giving the man and his family his single coin.  He tried to rationalize keeping the money - "such a time of conflict came upon me then as I have never experienced before or since".

The poor man turned to Taylor and begged him to help the family if he could.

Then, Taylor pulled the coin slowly from his pocket and gave it to him.  And he was overwhelmed with the joy of the Lord.

The next morning, he received an envelope in the mail and within was a blank sheet of paper containing a coin worth 400 times what he had given away.  He did not know who had sent it to him.

And the doctor?  Eventually, he remembered he had failed to pay his apprentice.

These answers to prayer - and a series of others in young Taylor's life - were building blocks in his life of faith.  He would remember them vividly in later years as he faced other trials.



Monday 11 July 2016

A parent's heart

There is nothing like a parent crying out to God for a child.

A mother or father praying for their child - and never giving up - finds a ready ear in God.

One of my favourite Bible stories is of Hannah, weeping as she prayed for a son.

Hannah, one of Elkanah's two wives, was deeply upset as she prayed before God at the Tabernacle in Israel.  She had no child and Elkanah's other wife, Peninnah, who had several children, taunted Hannah because she was childless (1 Samuel 1).

It's a heartache that many couples have faced over the centuries.

Crying as she prayed, Hannah whispered to God that she would give her child to him if he ensured she gave birth.  Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk and reprimanded her, but relented when he heard what she was praying.  He supported her prayer.

In time, she gave birth to a son, Samuel.  She stuck by her promise and, after Samuel was weaned, she gave him to Eli as his servant.

Samuel became a great prophet and played a major role in the destiny of Israel.

I was reminded of Hannah's story yesterday as I was reading Hudson Taylor's autobiography.

Taylor was one of the world's great missionaries, founding the China Inland Mission in the 1800s.  He grew up in a devout family, but he had turned away from God by the time he was 15.

Somehow, he had not grasped the truth of the gospel in his heart.  He believed he would have to earn his way to heaven and felt that was impossible.  So, he rejected God and looked for reasons to support his views.

But he had a powerful praying family.  His mother and sister were praying hard for him to become a follower of Jesus.

One day, while his mother was away visiting some friends, he wandered into his father's study and picked up a pamphlet which he hoped would give him some ammunition against Christianity.

At that moment, his mother felt a strong urge to pray at the home she was visiting.  She went to her bedroom and prayed for a long time, pouring out her heart to God for her son.  Then, she felt an inner certainty and peace that God had heard her and her son was safely in his hands.

Meanwhile, Taylor read the pamphlet and was struck to the heart.  His eyes were opened to the fact that Christ had done what he could not do - all he needed to do was believe in Jesus.  He took the step of faith.

When he told his mother on her return, she told him she already knew.  He later picked up a little book that was identical to one of his and found that it was his sister's record of her prayers.  She had dedicated herself to pray for him for months before he gave himself to God.

I remember, too, that Monica, mother of Augustine, prayed for her wayward son for years in 4th century North Africa.  She was a believer, but he was not.  He was living with a woman who gave him a son and he chased after popular philosophies - he was the equivalent of a 4th century New Ager.

But God heard Monica's prayers and Augustine surrendered his life to God.  He became one of the greatest Christian leaders and writers in history.

God wants everyone to enter his family.  And he wants to bless families.

He loves to answer the prayers of mothers and fathers praying for the spiritual welfare of their children.


Monday 4 July 2016

Weak in body - powerful in prayer!

Few things stimulate prayer more than hearing about God's powerful answers to prayer.

I am encouraged and inspired by the story of K.P. Yohannan, Indian-born founder of Gospel for Asia. Prayer has been at the centre of his mission which has reached out to millions of people in India and throughout Asia in the last few decades.

Yohannan is himself an answer to prayer.  No one could have predicted that he would one day be one of the world's outstanding Christian leaders.

He grew up dirt-poor in a little village in the state of Kerala in South India.

He felt a call to God when we was a slight, scrawny, 90-pound, 16-year-old.  His mother had been praying and fasting for years that at least one of her children would dedicate his life to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.  He was the baby of a large family - and it turned out God chose him.

But in his book Revolution in Missions, he says he was a very unlikely missionary.

"I was shy and timid and kept my faith mostly to myself," he writes. "I showed no leadership skills and avoided sports and school functions."

But a visit to his village by an Operation Mobilization team touched his heart and he set out for the mission's headquarters in India.  He was turned down, but the mission agreed to let him attend the annual training conference at Bangalore.

There he was challenged to live a life of "breathtaking, radical discipleship".  That night, he wrestled with God, shaking with fear and weeping at the thought of speaking publicly in the streets.

Suddenly, he felt he was not alone in the room but had an overwhelming sense of being loved.  Then, he gave himself to the Lord's will and asked God to "help me know that you You're with me".

The next morning, he went out in the streets and looked at the children and street vendors with new eyes.  "I loved them all with a supernatural, unconditional love I'd never felt before."

He walked towards the bus station and felt such a love for the people around him that he had to lean against a wall to keep his balance.

"[God's] loving heart was pounding within mine, and I could hardly breathe.  The tension was great.  I paced back and forth restlessly to keep my knees from knocking in fright."

He cried out to God: "Lord, if you want me to do something, say it, and give me courage."

Looking up from his prayer, he saw a huge stone and knew God wanted him to climb it and preach to the crowds in the bus station.  Scrambling up the stone, he says, "I felt a force like 10,000 volts of electricity shooting through my body."

He began singing a simple children's chorus, drawing a crowd.  And then, unprepared to preach, "God took over and filled my mouth with words of his love."

"As the authority and power of God flowed through me, I had superhuman boldness.  Words came out I never knew I had - and with a power clearly from above."

The mission leaders no longer questioned his calling.  He joined a mobile evangelistic team travelling through North India for the next seven years.

Many nights, they slept in roadside ditches because the villages the visited were often hostile. "Our team always created a stir, and at times we even faced stonings and beatings."

That experience moulded his character and his ultimate decision to found a mission of poor local missionaries in Asia who have worked under God's guidance to bring multitudes into the kingdom of God.

The stories he tells of answered prayer read like the Book of Acts.

What an example of a praying man!