I'm convinced God loves it when we ask him questions.
Why? Because it shows we want his guidance and help. He is a loving father who wants to be invited into his little child's concerns.
I have been asking God what he wants to tell me regularly for several years - ever since reading How to Hear God's Voice by Mark and Patti Virkler. Long before that, I was throwing questions at God like many believers when I faced problems.
Jan Johnson, author of Enjoying the Presence of God, is always popping questions in her daily life.
One day, she asked God what she needed to know and that night she dreamed about a family member whom she had been trying to help release her anger. But surprisingly the family member was waving happily to her while skating by. In her dream, she asked God whether she should stop worrying about her relative.
The next day, she talked about it with her husband and they agreed she should stop trying to "fix" her relative and place her in the hands of God. That same day she ran into a friend who was letting go and letting God work in a serious family matter.
Johnson admits she cannot prove that the dream and the subsequent conversation with a friend were messages from God. But equally, she can't say they were not. One result of her experience was to be available for her relative but to leave the results in God's hands.
"Within our loving conversation with God," she writes, "we lay questions on the table, waiting as long as it takes for impressions, convictions, clarity of thought, peaceful understanding, or helpful words from others. All that asking, seeking, and knocking has a way of shaping our desires."
It draws us closer to God, too. And we understand better what he wants us to do.
I have found that as I question God, he opens my mind to things I have not considered. And that may lead to decisions that are better in God's eyes.
David, a "man after God's own heart", asked questions of God in his years as a hunted man fleeing King Saul and later when he succeeded to the throne of Israel.
Just after David became king, the Philistines sent out an army to capture him.
In 2 Samuel 5, David responds by asking God whether he should attack. God tells him not to attack the Philistines straight on but to circle behind them near the poplar trees. Then, when David hears something like the sound of marching feet in the poplar trees, the Lord says he is to attack because God is already preparing the way for victory.
Sometimes, the best questions are those where we come before God asking if there are things in our lives he wants to change.
Asking questions of God takes us out of ourselves.
In effect, we are asking him to lend us his eyes as we consider our concerns.
That has to be good.
Why? Because it shows we want his guidance and help. He is a loving father who wants to be invited into his little child's concerns.
I have been asking God what he wants to tell me regularly for several years - ever since reading How to Hear God's Voice by Mark and Patti Virkler. Long before that, I was throwing questions at God like many believers when I faced problems.
Jan Johnson, author of Enjoying the Presence of God, is always popping questions in her daily life.
One day, she asked God what she needed to know and that night she dreamed about a family member whom she had been trying to help release her anger. But surprisingly the family member was waving happily to her while skating by. In her dream, she asked God whether she should stop worrying about her relative.
The next day, she talked about it with her husband and they agreed she should stop trying to "fix" her relative and place her in the hands of God. That same day she ran into a friend who was letting go and letting God work in a serious family matter.
Johnson admits she cannot prove that the dream and the subsequent conversation with a friend were messages from God. But equally, she can't say they were not. One result of her experience was to be available for her relative but to leave the results in God's hands.
"Within our loving conversation with God," she writes, "we lay questions on the table, waiting as long as it takes for impressions, convictions, clarity of thought, peaceful understanding, or helpful words from others. All that asking, seeking, and knocking has a way of shaping our desires."
It draws us closer to God, too. And we understand better what he wants us to do.
I have found that as I question God, he opens my mind to things I have not considered. And that may lead to decisions that are better in God's eyes.
David, a "man after God's own heart", asked questions of God in his years as a hunted man fleeing King Saul and later when he succeeded to the throne of Israel.
Just after David became king, the Philistines sent out an army to capture him.
In 2 Samuel 5, David responds by asking God whether he should attack. God tells him not to attack the Philistines straight on but to circle behind them near the poplar trees. Then, when David hears something like the sound of marching feet in the poplar trees, the Lord says he is to attack because God is already preparing the way for victory.
Sometimes, the best questions are those where we come before God asking if there are things in our lives he wants to change.
Asking questions of God takes us out of ourselves.
In effect, we are asking him to lend us his eyes as we consider our concerns.
That has to be good.
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