Relationships

The key to any good relationship is communication. This is my firm belief. Communication requires both talking and listening. To know someone, we must listen to them. Period. End of story. Relationships cannot exist without communication.

I said this to the youth group a couple weeks ago. They were all nodding their heads - totally agreeing with me. Then I said, "So, if you say you have a relationship with God, what does that mean?"

They all stared at me. They knew the answer and it freaked them out. One beautiful young girl said, "Fine Alaina, but how do we listen to God?" She bypassed the question because she wanted to know how to do it.

We all know that listening to God is important. We understand that relationship requires listening and speaking. So how come our prayer lives are filled with us talking? Why is it that in church on Sundays, or in small groups, all of our time is spent talking at God? We come with our laundry list of things to say and then 'Amen.' We're done. Why do we expect God to listen when we refuse to return the favor?

I'm sick of it. The trouble remains, however. "Fine Alaina, but how do we listen to God?" It has been ringing. The difficulty lies in the fact that I think we all hear the voice of God differently because the Spirit is manifested in all of us in different ways. We all have different gifts, different strengths, different ways of listening. I don't think God talks to everyone in the same way, and I'm glad about that. So how do you talk about it? That's the rub...if God speaks to everyone differently then how do you know when God is speaking to you? Or if you are just crazy? Because let's be honest - when God tells me to do something, more often than not it is something crazy. Almost every time in fact. Crazy.

It is so important to me that these students learn at this age that God cannot be manufactured because you pray a certain way, say a certain thing, sit with a certain posture, or think certain thoughts. I am of the belief that God is speaking all the time - we're just way too busy to notice or listen. I wish someone would have had the decency to tell me this when I was a teenager. It would have saved me from all my vain attempts to manufacture a place where God could speak to me.

Again, it is all about relationship. So I'm going to tell twenty students tomorrow that God will speak to them in all different ways. Then I'm going to see what happens. Won't it be great when they all go home with that information? Parents want me to teach their kids a system - I don't think there is a system, so I'm rebelling. I won't teach it. Being a disciple means spending time with God and figuring it out yourself. I pretty much refuse to give these students an easy way out - because I was told all those theories - and they only harmed me for years. I will help them, I will give them examples from my life and the lives of others, I will acknowledge that it is difficult, but I will not give them a 'how-to' list for God. I don't think there is one.