“Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the scriptures”? !

Such was the hindsight of the two disciples after they had met and conversed with the risen Jesus along their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:1-13-32) …… And now – after the fact – it was like “ohhh man…. He was right there with us … talking to us as we walked – and we did not even recognize Him!

They didn’t recognize Jesus because they were so filled with their own thoughts and reasonings that they “couldn’t see the forest for the trees” – as we often say when we have had something right in front of our face and yet failed to see it ….. Why?…..Because their reasonings – ie. both the “possiblilities” and the “impossiblilities”  of the circumstances  (see the March 26 post) that filled their minds and thinking this day – blinded them to the same thing that often blinds us to the truth –  the fact of who God”IS” – that He operates on a higher level than we do….. &  that when God is involved,  we just might be confronted with some things that are wonderful – but “difficult” for us to understand …… that is unless we learn to consider – even in the midst of our reasonings – that God lives in the supernatural!! …. And if He says it ,  He can do it!!

Our hearing God by the hearing ear of our spirit is also a supernatural thing… . It is a Spirit to spirit hearing – a hearing that belongs to the spirit of a man that has been born again…. Yes – God can – and He has spoken (in certain times and for specific purposes) to men who were not born again – but after receiving Jesus, we were “born again” – and with that new birth that took place in our spirit,  we were  given the capacity to hear God speaking to us.  But it is like all our human capacities to learn and grow in different ways – in that it has to be developed!  

But let’s get back to the two that had met the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus ….. and to what they shared with each other about that experience – ie .”Didn’t our heart burn within us – while He talked with us by the way,  and while He opened to us the scriptures”?

When God speaks to us, it is not at all uncommon to “feel” something “alive” with that hearing – and even though we learn to recognize His voice in much the same way that we learned to recognize that special voice of our mother or our father from the voice of any other – so we can learn to recognize the “voice” of God as well.  But understand, that there is “the recognizing” – AND – there is “the hearing” – so that we can  recognize who it is that we are hearing.

This is important because at times, even as we are maturing in that hearing by our spirit – we can be in the midst of deep thoughts about something – and have to question if we heard God speak a word to us.  That too is not uncommon – but at times when we have laid a question “about what to do” before the Lord – we must learn to quiet our mind – with its “reasonings” about that matter…..note that those “reasonings” of their minds was why  the two who walked with Jesus did not recognize Him …… So – we must learn to quiet our mind so that it is not so busy trying “to solve the problem” that we are hearing so many “answers” that they tend to get all tangled together!   When that is happening with your mind – it’s really kind of like trying to hear someone talking to you over the phone – all the while, someone beside you is talking to you (90 miles an hour ) at the same time – get the picture?

So, how do you quiet a “busy mind”?  I can share with you here some things that helped me when I was first learning this – all of which involve getting your mind to focus on something else.  One –  Isaiah 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace – whose mind is stayed on Thee.”  You can do this by meditating on a verse of scripture – or by focusing on memorizing that scripture.  Another thing I used to do when the focus on the problem was “eating my lunch” was that I would actually call a friend and ask them to give me something to pray about for someone in need.  Listening to and singing along with good music will also divert your mind from its insistence on solving a problem that only God knows the real way out of.

Now days I do not have a major problem with quieting my mind – but when I do have the least inclination in that direction , I usually do one of these three things: I begin deliberately giving thanks to God – or I will slip over into personal worship – or I set myself to begin praying in the spirit – any of these never fail to bring me into His presence where – as the Psalmist shares in Psalm 16:7-11  that “setting the Lord before you causes your heart to be glad, your tongue to rejoice, and your flesh also to rest.

The problem is not  that God does not want to communicate with His children, but the problem is that we aren’t hearing as we should…. but that is a problem with a solution – which is to LEARN to hear.  If that is a desire of your heart, know that God is ready to teach you and take you to that place of hearing – better and better – that is so greatly desired by those who know Him.  You CAN learn to hear and recognize the voice of God!  I did – after many years of longing for that….. and now in these posts starting with March 11 and going until ??  I will be sharing with you the things that have helped (and are helping) me!….those things are straight from the Word of God!  and by the way  I write because I hear –  to me that is so exciting!