Why Doesn’t God Speak To Us…Normally?

March 20, 2009 by EnnisP
Filed under: God Speaks

People often complain that God is not visibly present or audibly perceived and they are correct on both counts. He has, however, made extensive efforts to communicate with us, not just on the odd occasion, but throughout history. In fact, one New Testament writer captured the full extent of God’s effort to communicate in one very brief statement:

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2)”

In other words, God has spoken to us consistently over a long period of time (most of human history) and has used a variety of methods to do so. The people to whom this book was written, the Hebrews, (hence the name) were very familiar with the Bible record. They knew what God had done in the past and could appreciate the writer’s meaning. But, unless a person is familiar with Bible history they cannot know the full impact of this statement. Therefore, please consider the following ways in which God has communicated with us:

God spoke audibly to Adam, Eve, Cain, Noah, Abraham and others. He even spoke audibly during the life of Jesus.

He physically appeared to Abraham, Joshua and Gideon in the Old Testament and He appeared after the resurrection to the Apostles in the New.

He used dreams to communicate with Jacob and his son Joseph.

He used visions to reveal future world events to Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and the Apostle John.

He made His will known to Moses, the Israelites and even to the Egyptians using miraculous signs and wonders during the Exodus.

God also used angels as messengers to Abraham, Daniel, Zacharias and Mary.

In addition, and amazingly, He spoke convincingly to Elijah using a still small voice.

Obviously, God’s methods were not monotonous. He used a variety of diverse ways to communicate. You could say that God is a Master Communicator. He has no limitations and sometimes used a combination of several methods at the same time.

Of all the means God has used to communicate with us the most significant was Jesus Whom the Bible refers to as Immanuel, “God with us,” and we refer to His birth into this world as “the incarnation.”

Jesus didn’t just appear out of nowhere and then fade. He wasn’t a vision or dream. He became human in the same way we become human and lived among us, as one of us. This was a time consuming and inconvenient method of communication for Him. God, Whose existence was not restricted by time, was subjected to a time intensive process. It involved more than a memo, text message or meeting over coffee. It took a life time to get His message across.

Jesus’ coming into the world was powerfully miraculous but extremely low key. His birth alone was miraculous on many levels. He was born to a virgin, yes, but this fact pales in significance to the many other miraculous aspects of the incarnation.

The miracle of the virgin birth has less to do with the unusual way in which conception occurred and more to do with the fact that God, Who is limitless and immeasurable, was confined to a human biological process and reduced to a human state.

Jesus transitioned from a holy environment to one that was corrupt, from eternity into time and He put aside invincibility to take on human frailty. He went from being the “all powerful” to dwelling among the lowest of the low and very few people were aware of it when it happened. The event was not accompanied by fanfare. That alone was a miracle. This transformation was more incredible than even the camel passing through the eye of the needle.

And why did God go to so much trouble? To make it easy for us relate to Him.

Jesus was not trying to be sensational or to show His power. He came into the world in a very human way and He was born into the lowest levels of society because He wanted to be accessible and approachable. He was communicating with us in a way we could understand, appearing to us physically and speaking to us audibly, the very thing people ask for. He downplayed the miraculous and became agreeably mundane.

This approach had a very different affect to what He had done before. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush it mystified him. When He appeared to the Israelites on Mt. Sinai it frightened them. When Jesus took on human form the apprehension was removed. People were drawn to Him and they listened to what He taught. He touched them and they were healed. They felt free to ask their questions.

Note: For those who doubt the virgin birth there were at least two other people “born” in an unusual manner, the first human father and the first human mother. The coming into existence of these two people is far more unusual than the virgin birth of Jesus. Neither of them had mother or father. Prove that didn’t happen before questioning the birth of Jesus.

The point is, God has used many diverse ways to communicate with humanity and His efforts cover a span of time from creation to the death of the last Apostle. Following that, He made sure it was all recorded in the Bible for every other generation.

God has never personally come to my door, called me on the phone or shown Himself to me in any other normal, usual way but He has made Himself knowable to anyone who makes an effort to find Him.

As it stands now God is not far from any one of us and He has arranged circumstances to make it possible for any person to seek Him and find Him (Acts 17:27). The same book which made reference to the various times and ways in which God has attempted to communicate with us also said…

…He that comes to God (attempting to find Him) must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

God, like any other person, wants to be sought. He encourages us to make the effort and is accessible to anyone who does. He is represented as waiting patiently to hear our response. In fact, the Bible says…

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:13

God is equal and findable to every person. He will do nothing more until we do something next. ThinkAboutIt

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Comments

2 Comments on Why Doesn’t God Speak To Us…Normally?

Bernard Moran on Sun, 20th Mar 2011 6:03 am

Iam searching to understand how to keep faith in God and Jesus . When I research history from what man wrote in the bible I come to a conculion that man has incorrectly on porpose or by error wrote the history incorrect of Adam and Eve then the history of Noah and his three sons and there wifes. By this I mean, if my time table is correct Adam and Eve happened about 6,333 year ago created a human population that lived in sin and then about 4,000 years ago wiped out the human population except for Noah and his family and other living creatures and repopulated the earth again. My own research tells me that the time table could not be correct because in 4,000 + years it is impossible to have as many people we have on the earth today from three son’s and wifes of Noah time to create thru off spring all the different races. So Iam fighting with myself stating who ever wrote the history of the bible has the wrong time table. one fact would be when the 1st writing happened man kind did not know how old the earth was all the way up to when Christopher Cloumbus sailed the open sea people then thought the world was flat and you could fall off. 2nd DNA show with out doubt that man kind has lived on the earth at least a million years ago or more and DNA is also showing the beinging of human race started in Africa. 3rd DNA would show a much closer relationship between humans if our history was only 4,000 + years old. So my fight with my self is as we are more educated and sicence show us facts of our history that cannot be denied. How can I beleave other history in the bible to be a true fact if I cannot beleave the begining is correct. I do beleave in God and Jesus and I do beleave when Jesus was on the earth because fact show he did exsist during that time. But I feel that alot of the history has to be incorrect it just cannot be true. Also that back when Alleged Adam and Eve then Noah’s time most people were very ignorrent and mankind used fear to persude and control the people.
There has to be a start but I don’t think the bible is 100 percent correct I feel man could not have written about the correct past time when man did not know how old the earth is during the that time.
Investigator Moran (retired NYCPD)

EnnisP on Sun, 20th Mar 2011 6:41 am

Thanks for the visit and the comment Bernard. There are two things you want to keep in mind.

The Bible is history but without chronological specifics. We know the order of events but we can’t be sure of the times and dates when those events occurred. That means there is room for speculation and even disagreement over the exact timing.

It is fair to say the Bible dates the earth in terms of thousands of years rather than millions but theologians and even Christian scientist disagree on how many thousands of years.

Secondly, I’m not a scientist but DNA research also indicates that the human race is accumulating more genetic faults with each successive generation. Those faults effect our ability to “understand” all the new information we have. That is, we are gaining a greater knowledge base but our ability to process that knowledge is declining.

Not everyone agrees on how to interpret the new information. It’s OK to accept the facts but we must be careful not to accept interpretations too quickly.

All the best on your journey with God.

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