hello? are you there?

have you ever just wanted God to speak up? i mean, just let me hear what you've got to say God. why must we try and decifer signs, feelings, urges.... etc. where's the Urim and the Thummim when you need them?

i don't know about all of you, but sometimes i just want answers. i guess it is our impatient american society that causes us to want immediate answers. look at us; e-mail, cell phones, 24-hour customer service, online shopping. we want what we want and we want it now. it's kind of sad really, that we are so impatient.

i guess that i'm just venting out loud what i have vented to my Lord, that i want to hear Him speak to me.
did you ever wonder, in the old testament, when God spoke to abraham, isaac, jacob, joseph, moses, and joshua did he actually speak to them like we speak to each other? did they hear his voice like they heard a friend. when moses went into the tent of meeting, did he have real verbal conversations with the Lord? i often wonder about this. i want that sometimes. i also think, what if the burning anger came with it when i messed up. we are very lucky and blessed to have had Christ die for our sins. i can only imagine having God's anger burn against me and then leaving me with a leporous arm! or in a pile of ashes, or having the ground split open and swallow me and my whole family along with all my belongings!

but, i do wish that the Lord was more clear with us all the time. sometimes, he comes right out and says it. you know, you pray about something and then the next day, some random person comes to you and says something about the exact thing you were praying about.

i also feel that the closer we are walking, the easier it is to hear his voice. it's like when you are walking with someone down the side walk, you can hear them clear as day. but then, all of this traffic comes, construction noise, background noise, confusion.... distractions. you can't hear them as well, if at all. you end up shouting, and getting frusturated.
it's as if you were walking along then got split up in a crowd, or crossed the street. when there is distraction and noise or you simply go another direction, it is impossible to hear God clearly. we must be walking next to Him for that clearness to ring through.

we all want answers now, but in order to get them we must be walking with God. Matthew Henry's commentary on the Old Testament has this to say about walking with God, from Genesis 5:22,23 talking about Enoch.

"To walk with God is to set God always before us, and to act as those that are always under his eye. It is to live a life of communion with God both in ordinances and providences. It is to make God's word our rule and his glory our end in all our actions. It is to make it our constant care and endeavour in every thing to please God, and nothing to offend him. It is to comply with his will, to concur with his designs, and to be workers together with him. It is to be followers of him as dear children."

Enoch was said to have walked with God and God took him up.... he didn't die. now that would be sweet! what if you were that close with God? what if our lives were that consumed with pleasing the God Almighty that we walked with Him instead of lived? what if God were so pleased with us that he took us before death? wow.

Heavenly Father,
bless me with the discipline for a closer walk with you.
May I put you always before me, as my focus.
May I always seek to please you, Gracious Father,
never to offend you.
May your Word be my blood, my breath.
May I always adhere to your will.

Please grant me the ears to hear you,
the eyes to seek you,
the tongue to praise you,
the arms to reach you,
the feet to follow you.

Amen.