Don’t Miss Out

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD.
‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9

I have always said, “Don’t put God in a box,” and then the other day this passed by my desk. Enjoy -

“I used to have a fairly narrow concept of the acceptable ways for God to speak to me: through the Bible, prayer time, church teaching, solid spiritual hymns or songs...you know where I’m going here. I knew that God would never use something secular or even (gasp!) worldly to speak to me.

But one day, during a particularly difficult time in my life, I was driving around the ranch listening to the hits station on the radio. Recently the Lord had been teaching me about His deep and personal love for me, and how it changes everything around me. Then all of the sudden, this song came on the radio talking about that very thing!

Okay, maybe the song wasn’t really talking about God’s love...maybe it was just talking about other people, who probably didn’t know the Lord. But the truth God spoke to me about Himself as I listened to that song could not have been more solid if it had come straight from a Bible class or pulpit. Over the next two months this same scenario replayed itself five or six times.

I am not suggesting that the real way to hear God is to go turn on the secular radio and listen until something hits you. What I am saying is that when I made up my mind how God was allowed to work in my life, I put Him (and myself as well) in a box. I made rules for how and when God could speak to me, and through what means. And, in all probability, I completely missed out on a lot of things that God wanted to tell me over the years.

It has become a regular thing for the Lord to speak to me about something that I see in a movie or hear on the radio. Some would say, ‘That just cheapens God, brings Him down to your level.’ I completely disagree. I think it is incredible that God will use something as silly as a movie on the big screen to teach me about Himself. How great is that? God lives and operates in ways we can’t begin to imagine. The sooner we realize and accept this, the more awesome our everyday lives will become.”
- Nathan Miller