When God Doesn't Speak the Way I Expect

Good morning. Today we are in Isaiah 21, verses 1 through 10.

As I've been walking through Isaiah, I did not make an anticipated plan.

I learned that God will see my thought process of where we're going to go in any given day or week in Scripture, and I really feel like He's like, "Nice try, but it's not gonna work out that way."

And so, especially through John, I found myself rewriting my plan out over and over again.

And finally, by the time I got to the end of John, I'm like, "Why am I even trying?"

Like, I know we're in the book of John. I know we're reading it chapter by chapter. God obviously has a very different plan than the one I keep constructing.

And I just—I just wanna rely more on Him than my false idea that I have any idea where we're going.

And so when we stepped into Isaiah, I really stopped doing that.

And I've been like, "All right, Lord. Well, You brought me here, so I'm gonna trust that You're gonna guide us through Isaiah at Your pace—at least the pace that You have laid out in front of me."

And at first, I was really worried that Isaiah may end up taking us, you know, six or nine months.

And through it all, God was just like, "Oh, trust Me. I have a reason, and I have a plan, and I just want you to go."

Isaiah. Let's see where we go.

So yeah, we've had times in which we've read a chapter, half of a chapter, a chapter and a half, or three chapters.

And I'm like, "Oh God, I see Your hand here."

And it's definitely been the reminder that while we use chapter and verse to help us find things in Scripture, in this amazing book that we love to read and study Scripture from, chapter and verse really have no concept to God.

And He can totally just meet us anywhere—in the middle of something, or in something, in a different spot than we expect.

And it reminded me of the importance of learning to read Scripture in chunks.

You know, not to zero in on just one verse, but to read around it, to read the whole chapter, to stop, pray, and gain understanding, to research, to understand history of things that were going on.

Just because chapter and verse is a human construct, not God's.

So yeah, I chuckled a bit when I made it to 21, and I was like, "All right, you know, we've made it through a big chunk of Scripture so far."

And then I made it through verse 10, and God's like, "All right, you have enough."

I will admit that when I came into chapter 21 and immediately saw that it was another form of judgment, I was like, "We've had so much judgment."

That's not my favorite part of God that I'm really having to learn—the whole image and view of God in a much broader view than I have before—and being uncomfortable with some of the parts about Him.

And Isaiah is really hammering that home for me.

So being stuck in—sort of being mentally in this place of another judgment—I decided to stop and just start writing out Isaiah, the chapters, and seeing where I ended up in 21.

And I love writing out Scripture because it does a number of things for me.

One, it forces me to slow down.

Two, it forces me to be very aware of the words.

It forces me to be present because it'll quickly show you—or show me—if I am not being present.

I will skip words.

I will invent words.

I will skip entire lines.

I will repeat entire lines.

So it's very evident that I am not being present.

And so writing out Scripture really forces me to practice being present, which I think is useful in a lot of areas of life.

And as I was writing these verses out, God definitely started speaking.

And then I've sat with Him for a little while, or I got to the point that I felt like I had something to share.

And so we're gonna live in verses 2, 3, and 4 mainly.

Two is Isaiah speaking, and he's sharing about this vision that God showed him.

And in it, we hear God speaking.

But it starts with:

"A harsh vision has been shown to me."

And that immediately made me stop and think because I'm like, "Harsh?"

I don't think of a vision of God ever as being harsh.

And it made me stop and think that maybe I have this threshold in my head of what's from God and what's not from God, somehow based on how I feel about it and based on how it is.

So if I hit this word "harsh," I'd be like, "That's not God. Absolutely not God."

But then it doesn't get any better in verse 3:

"For this reason my loins are full of anguish; Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor. I am so bewildered I cannot hear, So terrified I cannot see."

"My mind reels, horror overwhelms me; The twilight I longed for has been turned into trembling for me."

And you know what?

I would immediately have dismissed this as not from God.

Because I, for some reason, have this idea in my head that I expect God's visions and revelations to me to be pleasant, to be comfortable, to be reassuring.

And this certainly is not any of those things.

And then I got stuck with peace.

And I'm like, "Well, there's not any peace here."

And I'm like, "Well, my feeling of peace is not the same as God giving peace."

And I was like, "I think I need to make sure that when I use discernment, I am not using my human construct."

And really learning to turn to God and not just expecting Him to talk to me in, you know, pastoral, green sheep, shepherd, comforting images.

That He may speak to me and show me things that are harsh, that cause horror, that cause bewilderment and terror.

And I can't immediately assume that it's not God.

And I think I need to still sit with that and allow God to speak to me because, yeah, I think I've got the wrong construct in my head.

And I need to make sure that I'm lined up with Him and not how I feel.

So what jumped out at you?

What made you pause and think more about how God speaks to you?

Or is there something completely different that jumped out at you?

Oh, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, that I would learn to hear from You however You choose to speak to me.

That I won't have my own human assumption that if it causes discomfort, it's harsh, or does any of these things, that it's not from You.

But instead, I would come to You with whatever it is that You've shown and ask for Your discernment and Your understanding.

That I don't dismiss it simply because of how it makes me feel.

Simply because it's not this angelic, pastoral, gentle thing that I expect to come from You.

Oh, that I would hear You speak and that I would not assume or dismiss it because it's not what I expect.

Oh Lord, please be with us as we go off today doing the things that You've called us to do, talking to the people You've placed on our path, hearing You no matter how You speak to us.

Oh Lord, it is in the precious name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining me today as we wander through God's Word with wonder.