Hearing from God Pt. 1

Do your Christian gatherings give God the opportunity to speak?

By the grace of God, I began helping lead worship for my original church’s youth group around the year 2000. Mike Satterfield (the Youth Minister at the time) spent a lot of time teaching me how to lead worship and discipling me, and I wish I would’ve paid better attention to him.

One Wednesday night, he had all of us participate in one of the weirdest and most spiritually edifying activities I had ever witnessed. At the beginning of the night, every student and leader were instructed to gather in a large circle (there were around 50 of us). He then told us that God was going to be the worship leader that night, and we were going to stay there in the circle and sing whatever God put on our hearts to sing.

It was so awkward and uncomfortable.

At first.

But then, slowly, one by one, someone started singing:

Lord, I lift Your name on high

Lord, I love to sing Your praises

I’m so glad You’re in my life

I’m so glad You came to save us

You came from heaven to earth

To show the way

From the earth to the cross

My debt to pay

From the cross to the grave

From the grave to the sky

Lord, I lift Your name on high

We sang that chorus a cappella several times, and it was beautiful. It was so moving. Even right now as I’m thinking back to that moment, my eyes are welling up. There was something so right about giving the Holy Spirit room to operate.

We sang several songs that night and there were several brief moments of exhortation. There were also some awkward pauses, but then God would prompt someone with the next thing He wanted done. We prayed and listened, and God spoke.

There in that moment, I started to feel the confidence David must have felt when He penned Psalm 17:6. “I call upon You, for You will answer me, O God (ESV).” I think almost all of us were probably feeling that way, for we were calling out to God, and He was answering us… right there in that moment. I’m so glad Mike was faithful in listening and obeying God’s promptings for that night.

So… when you pray, when you talk with God, when you ask Him questions, do expect Him to answer?

When you gather as a community of believers and you pray together, do you give God the opportunity to speak? What are some ways we can let God be our main worship leader privately and publically?

As you think about those questions, let me encourage you with these words from an early Christian disciple of Jesus:

Be constant in both prayer and reading. Now speak with God; then let God speak with you. Let Him instruct you in His teaching, let Him direct you. – Cyprian 250CE Volume 5 p. 279-280