The first weekend of the 18 days I decided to fast, to hear from God.  I really knew nothing of hearing his voice at that point, but I was desperate.  After moving out based on consequences around porn, my world was turned upside down.  I had nothing.  I needed him and didn’t really know how to get to him.

I had heard my friend Kate LeBoeuf teach about fasting, and it was different than anything I’d run into up to that point.  She challenged that rather than asking God for a specific outcome in a fast, we might rather ask for our heart to be a “yes” to whatever God had to say or wanted to do.

The weekend dragged on, I journaled, cried, begged, pleaded, got pissed about not eating, and essentially did everything but hear his voice.  I was super frustrated.  Then Sunday night, I heard “never will I leave you, never will I forsake you”.  (from Hebrews 13:5b)  It felt like my thinking, the sub-vocalization much like my own thoughts.  But the quality of it was different, and I knew it wasn’t my thought, but his.

The next time I saw our counselor, I was a little disappointed about the whole thing, “yeah, I fasted all weekend and all I got was this crummy verse.”  He re-directed my thinking.  “The God of the universe spoke to you and you’re whining?”  He helped me see that this thought from God, his promise to never abandon me, was just the thing I needed to keep going.  I was not sure at that point if I could actually change, or if I could save my marriage, or what would happen next.  But one thing I did know.  God was there, God was here, and he wasn’t going away.

Lesson 4?  We have a conversational God, who’s speaking all the time, and it’s worth taking the time to hear his voice.  He says in Psalm 139:18 “how many are my thoughts concerning you, like the grains of sand on the sea.”  He’s thinking about you all the time.  He also says, in John 10:27, “my sheep hear my voice and they follow.”  He wants to talk to you, for you to hear from him.  It might take a little practice, some false start beginnings like mine, but it will be worth it.  Start by crediting every thought you have that takes you to him, as being from him.  Every time you sing the lines of a worship song, it’s him pulling you back to him and speaking to you.  Every time a scripture fires in your thoughts, or you’re struck by simple beauty in nature.  Start with “yes”, say thank you, and then ask for more.