God’s Communication Goals: An Introduction

God doesn’t engage in idle chit chat. He doesn’t waste words. Every single syllable spoken from the mouth of God has purpose and meaning. Not understanding who God is and why He speaks will cause real trouble; not only in your ability to hear God’s voice, but also in your ability to interpret and apply what you’ve heard.

For example, let’s say you and your spouse have a great marriage built on trust and mutual respect.

You look out for each other’s best interest and you desire to protect one another from harm. You have no reason to believe your spouse would lie to you, ever.

 

On an ordinary day, your spouse walks through the door and without any explanation yells, “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, RIGHT NOW!”
What do you “hear” your spouse saying?

 

 

 

 
What do you do in response?

Very good…here’s another:

 

Now let’s say you believe your spouse is cheating on you. In fact, you are pretty certain he or she hasn’t been truthful with you for months now. When your spouse left for work this morning, you were in the middle of another knock-down-drag-out. You told your spouse through angry tears that you had had enough. You want out. Specifically, you want HIM out.

Your spouse laughs in your face and says, “If anyone is leaving it’s YOU.” Furthermore, he expects you to be gone when he gets home tonight.

Now pretend your spouse walks through the door and yells, “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, RIGHT NOW!”

What do you “hear”?

 

What do you do in response?
Here’s one more:

You are a stay at home mom. Of three little kids. All three kids have been home with the flu for a solid week and you are about to lose your mind if you don’t get a break. Your husband, who happens to work long hours to support your puking family, promises you that as soon as he gets home from work today, you can go out alone, get a pedicure, go to Starbucks, stroll through Barnes and Noble, use the restroom…anything your little heart desires…

Just before he walks through the door, all three kids start crying and hanging on your legs…”Mommy, don’t leave!!! WWWWAAAAAAAAAA.” Your middle child vomits on the kitchen floor, and the oldest one child steps in it.

Your husband walks through the door and yells, “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, RIGHT NOW!”

What do you “hear”?

What do you do in response?

 

And if any of you said, “stay and clean up the vomit,” I’d like to see you after class.
Do you see how

the exact same words

 

spoken by the exact same person

 

to the exact same person

can have completely different meanings and elicit completely different responses depending upon both what the hearer believes about the speaker and the purpose behind the speaker’s statement?

Well, it may sound trite, but the same is true with God. What you believe and how much you know about God determines what you hear. And what you believe about His purpose in talking to you will either aid or cripple your ability to correctly interpret and apply what you hear.

So in this series we’ll talk about the context in which God speaks. Why does He even bother to talk to us anyway? WHAT does He want us to know? WHY does He want us to know it? WHAT does He want us to do with what we know.