If I'm wrong then strike me down
With a bolt from the heavens
With a breath from a holy sigh
If I'm right then light my way
Can you tell me the difference?
Can you see it through all our eyes?
- Everything Everything
During the start of the Third Impact, an incredibly difficult thought-pattern that stuck in my mind was about hearing from God and the lack that I felt I experienced. Particularly the fear that I may not be able to separate it from my own thoughts; worse still, that others might not either. It would be a terrible accusation, would it not? To say to someone, “I think what you think is divine communication is simply what you want to hear.” I would never directly accuse someone of such, but I can’t help but feel (and sometimes mention) the doubt.
I have prayed a few times that a particular person would talk to me. In fact, a couple different people. There is a priest who comes into my coffee shop pretty often and I simply have asked a number of times that God would lead him to talk to me. He has yet to do so, but I ask every time I see him. In a similar vein, during the most intense parts of Third Impact, I would ask in my mind and out loud to be shown something, violently if need be. I would look at the blue sky and ask to see lightning or be walking down the hall and ask to be knocked down.
When I mention some of this to my friends and family (asking for a sign in general), the responses are always mixed. Some Christians will tell you that it is good to do so and to keep praying to be shown. Others say that it’s not really going to work like that. And still others say that it would be pointless as you wouldn’t believe what you saw anyway. This last sentiment is most disheartening; to claim that what you see around you in the world should be enough and that additional proof would be rationalized away. It puts on the burden entirely back onto the person with doubt. This feels similar, if not directly related to Romans 1:20.
An Update
There is a lady at a table near me at my coffee shop who is talking nonstop about all of her evangelizing. She seems to use the What if you’re wrong and you die‽ tact which always makes me feel somewhat ill. On one hand, she seems to be someone who does not fall prey to The Flippancy of Hell, but on the other, it seems like a scare tactic. Regardless, it seems obvious that she’s very willing to speak with strangers that she feels called to. I have asked in my mind, that God lead her to talk to me. I’m sitting here for a while, so we shall see.
Pushback
Sometimes you encounter push back to this kind of thinking. I saw a post on Tumblr today indicating that not hearing might/probably means you have the wrong conception of hearing from God and/or you are not listening to the quiet voice. This seems like a cop out to me; the blame is shifted back to the person who wants to hear because they are apparently not “doing it right”. It’s difficult for me to know if some quiet voice I hear is my own mind or not. It’s the most easy thing to doubt.