Why Doesn't God Just Talk to Us?

 

I was spending some time with granddaughters recently when one of the six-year olds asked, “Why doesn’t God just talk to us?” This is an honest question that is not so very different from what I’ve thought myself but didn’t have the boldness to say out loud. Of course I believe God has talked to us in his word, and that was my answer, but I have to admit that this answer doesn’t completely cover all the questions.

However, two times in recent years I have had what seemed to me to be direct responses from God to my own inner ponderings. Some of you may have heard this first story before, but it fits here, so I’ll repeat it.

I had been attending a meeting on Broad Street in Chattanooga and was ready to head home about 9:30 in the evening. There are many ways home from downtown, and I wanted to take the most efficient way but was feeling tired and maybe not up to dealing with I-24 traffic. I began talking to God about the best way to go as I started the car and headed up East Main Street. I wanted him to show me what to do.

If I were to take the interstate, I knew I’d need to turn on South Kelly and use the ramp there, and I was quickly approaching the turn. Then some inner skeptic said, How’s God going to stop me from taking the interstate? I’m driving the car. So I turned right on Kelly to take what seemed the best way to get home quickly.

As I came within sight of the ramp where I-24 passes over Kelly, I should have been seeing the roadway, but I couldn’t see it at all. It was as if there were a high wall just beyond the traffic light at East 23^rd. I continued down the street in wonderment. When I got to the light, I saw the problem: a large truck was stopped dead on the street, completely blocking the way to the interstate. With a wry smile, I turned left on 23^rd and took an alternate route home!

I shared this story with folks at church one Sunday night, and it has stayed with me as a recurring reminder that God can direct my path even if I can’t hear an audible voice. Another reminder came just last Saturday.

I put on a pot of beans (beans again!) and took a cup of coffee and my Bible and another book out to the front porch. I was reading about Moses and his struggles with the people of Israel, and I stopped to think about what Moses’ life was like—how he got an excellent education in Egypt that made him a fit person to write the early history of the world. I have seen a chart showing that Moses could have known someone who knew Noah, and thus had a good source of information for the flood narrative. But then I started thinking, How did God communicate with Moses about the earlier days? What reliable source did Moses have? Did God just talk to him? That seems a little hard to believe. About that time, I thought of my beans, jumped up and ran into the house and lifted the lid to find a pot almost dry. In another minute or less I’d have had burnt beans. I got to them just in time. Why? I recalled with some chagrin the question I'd just been asking when God said to me, Beans! I believe God was showing me that he can, indeed, communicate needed truth when he wants to.

I did not hear God’s voice in my ear, but I certainly heard him in my mind. Can God just talk to people? Yes, he can.

More than once in scripture, God poses the rhetorical question, Is anything too hard for the LORD? (Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:27), and in Luke 18:27, Jesus asserts, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.

I don’t know what kind of struggle you face. Maybe it’s as simple as lost keys or as momentous as a health crisis, but God can and does intervene in the lives of his people. Perhaps you don’t have that inner skeptic that rises up in me, but if you do, let these examples give you courage to believe.

--Sherry Poff