Originally posted February 28, 2009

"I just really feel like God is telling me..."
"I just don't feel like God has released me..."
"God told me to tell you..."

Have any of you ever been told this by someone? Maybe by someone you were in a disagreement with? Maybe by a close friend, relative or pastor? Have these (and others like them) been overused in your mind?

Before I give my opinion on those statements, let me first say that I truly believe that people can hear from God. God speaks to people both audibly and inaudibly...I will say that I have never heard the audible voice of God but I certainly believe it can happen. I also know that I have experienced what I believe to be God telling me his will for my life often...sometimes through what I read, through what I watch and through what I feel in my spirit.

That being said, I make a conscious effort to not be as forward as to tell someone else that I believe that God has told me something that involves them changing their minds or plans. Why? Because I've come to realize that, especially among Christians, "God told me..." has evolved into an end-all, be-all type of statement. And, unfortunately, I strongly believe, that some people use those types of phrases, when they are not entirely true, as a means of manipulating others into doing something that they don't want to do.

So, what do you do when someone "uses" one of those phrases on you? I wish I had a best answer for that. If someone told me that God had told THEM something about MY life, I would politely tell them that, if God truly desired that for MY life, that he would find a way to communicate it to me directly...or through a source with which I had previously developed a strong trust in their judgment.