"Daily Bread: Conversations with God" started as a personal journal. For the most part, I post the conversations I have with God during my prayer time, save those that are too personal for the internet.
For the first two decades of my christian life, although I believed in Christ, I was convinced that hearing Him speak to me was not an option. This led to a whole lot of strife on my part, wanting so badly to have a relationship with Christ, but having no interaction with Him. I was left with religion only, trying very hard to practice what was preached, but my heart was not in it. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all nice concepts, but I was not after concepts. I wanted a Father, I wanted a Friend, and I wanted a Guide in this life.
After reading as much on the subject of hearing His voice as I could, trying to glean from people I knew to have close relationships with God, I began to believe that I was able to "hear" His voice in a sense. I saw pictures in my head that were often symbols that I was able to interpret, and I began utilizing this gift for prophetic ministry. The problem was that I was still unable to "hear" the voice of God that Jesus says His sheep recognize, and I often struggled with the idea that what I was seeing or hearing was not God, but my imagination or subconscious garbage, and that I was just applying an interpretation and calling it "from God."
I came across a teaching called "Communion with God" by a man named Mark Virkler, whose process of learning intimacy with God resonated greatly with my own experience. A seminary trained minister, Virkler dedicated a year of his life to developing an understanding of how to hear God's voice. Without entering into much detail about the teaching, Virkler's lays out the fundamental concepts of hearing God's voice and teaches how to listen to what many of us already hear, but often disregard as our own brain activity. The process of "two-way journaling" as displayed on my blog allows us to record the flow of what we hear without engaging our analytical minds until after recording it. The process is as simple as quieting yourself (becoming still before God), fixing your eyes on Jesus (focusing on Jesus with the eyes of your heart), tuning to the spontaneous flow of your heart (allowing spontaneous thought, feeling, pictures, senses, etc.), and writing what comes.
I approached this process with great skepticism for many reasons, and I am continually surprised by how much of what I am hearing and seeing is confirmed either by other people, scripture, circumstance, etc. to actually be from God, and not just from my own subconscious. Much of what I hear is indeed what I would consider to be the flow of my imagination or what psychologists call the subconscious. In scripture, Jesus identifies the flow as a river of living water, flowing from our innermost being. I am learning to trust Jesus's take on the matter instead of chalking this up to subconscious psychobabble.
So, as you read, keep a few things in mind: I don't claim that this is all God, I am in a process of learning to hear and give freedom to His voice in my heart, so some of what I write may be, in fact, wrong and/or not scriptural. I also do not claim that this is an exclusive gift that I and/or a select few possess, rather an all inclusive gift according to John 7:38. However, what I write is followed by much prayerful thought and study of scripture, so that I may be able to cull from the time I spend with the Lord anything that is not from Him. I welcome comments, but keep it clean and in the spirit of love and learning, otherwise, your comment will be moderated.
