#15 - Hearing Gods voice - Lesson's we've learned

The past two weeks we’ve tried to write down how we (practice) listen(ing) to God’s voice. Over the past years, we’ve learned a couple of things, usually by making a lot of mistakes, followed by talking, praying and reading books or listening to podcasts. I’ve tried to put those things to paper, to close this blog-series on listening to God’s voice with.

1. It's okay to go all Gideon and ask for a very stupid/crazy/out of the box sign. We've done this multiple times and sometimes they came and we just went ahead and did it in faith, sometimes they didn't and we didn't do it. Examples of this you can find on blog number 5.

2. The Spirit is in you and guides you, so you can usually trust that gut-feeling you have, especially if it correspondents to God’s written words in the Bible. If something gives you peace, it is more likely to be the 'good' decision then when it gives you restlessness. For example, we decided to both work parttime with the consequence of not having a lot of money, so that we could be with the kids without daycare. Even though it brought forth some stressful situations, we still had peace. And then all of a sudden that peace was gone and we found out that it was time for Ramon to start working fulltime and me to become a stay-at-home-mom that handles everything around Bakkers Beyond Borders. And lately, because I am kind of a yes-girl, I started taking on more and more stuff, got a job offer and almost accepted it because it could help us financially. I got really restless after all of this and after some thought and prayer, I decided to decline the job offer. Instant rest came in me and when I later read back some of the things I had written down because I believed God had spoken it to me, one of them said that He wanted me to stop working for a while and focus on the building of our family and ministry for a while. 

3. It's easier to steer a car that's moving than that it is to steer a stationary car. Sometimes you simply don't know what to do and you don't get the neon sign that you're hoping for. That's okay, sometimes God does that to teach you something and sometimes He does that because He trusts that you'll be smart and wise. Anyway, if we don't know what to do, we make sure we keep moving and keep being available to steer instead of waiting around. Just push some doors and see which one opens.

4. The previous one leads to this point because often we’re afraid to keep moving. Because ‘What if I accidentally take the wrong turn?’ We’ve learned that God will not get stressed out if you make a 'mistake'. If you believe you're following His voice, even though it might not have been His voice, that's not as big of a deal as we as human beings think so. God isn't stressed out because He knows you and every possible scenario that can happen after every possible choice you can make. We also found out that God can use you wherever you are, even if it's not the place He first had in mind for you.