One of the things that fascinates and warms me the most about a relationship with our God – Almighty Creator, Father of mankind, Lord, King of the universe – is that He reveals His thoughts to us. Amos says so:
He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord God Almighty is his name (Amos 4:13 NIV).
It is one of the things that sets Christianity apart from other faiths. Our God is not an angry, distant, aloof, demanding, and fickle God we have to appease with rituals, rules, and form worship. He has created us for a relationship with Him and delights in communion with us.
And communion is not limited to us yacking His ear off with our needs and concerns but involves listening to Him and delighting in the revelation of His thoughts.
Isaiah, one of Amos’ contemporaries, puts it this way:
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David (Isaiah 55:4 ESV).
I don’t know about you, but that makes me hungry. Of all the things that fight for my daily attention, I want the revelation of His thoughts to be first, foremost, and uppermost. Nothing truer, purer, holier, wiser, deeper, more just, more excellent, and more beautiful exists than the thoughts of God. If I must be found guilty of coveting, let it be that I covet to know the mind of God as much as He wants to reveal it to me.
If receiving the revelation of His thoughts seems out of reach, consider this:
- He has given us His Word. It is a love letter full of moral law, history, poetry, prophecy, vision, teaching, instruction, and commands that are the sum total of His thoughts toward us.
- He has given us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and help us understand His Word and give us strength to live by it.
- He has made His Word alive and active, with the power to inform us, equip us, and transform us like no other book on earth can.
- He has promised life for our souls if we listen to Him: spiritual depth, insight, perspective, faith, hope, joy, peace, purpose – in short, the stuff that makes us come alive and thrive.
- He has given us pastors and teachers to help us understand what it says, apply it to our lives, and teach us how to draw the most out of the life-giving treasures of His Word.
- He has given us the spiritual ability to hear Him directly as He prompts us and guides us through the circumstances of our daily lives.
So what is getting in our way? Why is it that so few of us have our Bibles open and our souls in stillness to hear Him reveal His thoughts to us? Could it be that we nibble at the table of the world and everything it wants to say to us so much that we lose our appetite for good, rich, spiritual food? Or could it be that we are afraid of trying to listen to an invisible God lest we mistake the revelation of His thoughts for something else like our imagination or wishful thinking, or worse – the devil?
Whenever I lose my excitement over God revealing His thoughts to us, I have to look deep inside myself to see what I have allowed into my mental and emotional appetites that competes with the Word and lures my desire away from His presence and toward entertainment and creature comforts.
We must be vigilant against filling our minds with worldly things. And we must make our hearts and minds receptive to what He wants to reveal to us. Remember that God is sovereign. He decides what, how, and when He makes His thoughts known to us. We just have to have our spiritual receivers tuned in at all times.
That’s a decision we must make every day when we wake up. Do I quiet my heart, step into His presence, and await the revelation of His thoughts as I open my Bible and pray? Or do I start thinking about my to-do lists, crank up the radio or the TV, and get on with my day promising myself that “maybe I’ll pray and read tomorrow?”
God loves to reveal His thoughts but He doesn’t force them on us. He can only sow them into receptive hearts and believing minds and those we must keep tender and receptive by constant practice, motivated by a deep conviction that we can’t live without His revelation.
Let’s not disappoint Him.