Hey friends! How are you communicating with God? Is it one sided? Do you stop and listen? How do you hear God? Today’s episode is part one of your spiritual checkup and how communication plays a vital role in your relationship with God.
Welcome to a community of women who strive to Let Him In.
You are listening to episode 3, titled Your Spiritual Checkup Part One
Hey you guys! This is Kelsie Millet and I am your host here on the Let Him In Podcast, where
my intent is to have these episodes full of thoughts, impressions and ways for you to easily let God into your every day. Today we are starting what I like to refer to as a spiritual checkup, where we are going to take a quick assessment of our relationship with God. This assessment will be split over this episode and the following three.
Just like any of our earthly relationships, our relationship with God takes effort. At the beginning of mine and Erick’s marriage we had a few rocky years. And we ended up going to couple’s therapy and to probably no one’s surprise communication was the key factor in 99.9% of our problems. We had a lot to figure out.
But I remember the biggest hurdle was really understanding how Erick my husband communicated with me and how I liked to communicate with Him. This seems so obvious, but there are so many layers to communication in any relationship. I had to figure out that texting was not his form of communication, and as much as I wanted him to send me these sweet text messages throughout the day, that just wasn’t going to happen. And it was simply because he hates texting, and would much rather just call me when he thought about me.
He on the other hand had to learn that sometimes in a conversation I needed a pause, I needed to stop and gather my thoughts before I could continue in a conversation. These and many other examples fall into layers of communication in a relationship.
All of us I’m sure have struggled with communication. It is such a huge factor of everyday life that at some point we have to learn how to do it. There are so many different ways to communicate in the world that we live in today. We have facetime, text messages, emails, emojis, you name it- there are so many ways.
What if there were also just as many ways that you could communicate with God? That there wasn’t only one form of communication. There were different ways of reaching him.
For example, let’s picture using a baby monitor. A baby monitor helps you to feel like you know what is going on. It gives you that sense of peace and safety because you can use it to see your baby and you could even talk to your baby and remind her that she needs to lay down.
This form of communication is one-sided. You speak to your baby and although that capability gives you some sense of peace. You are not sitting at your baby monitor expecting her to speak back to you.
Now, I want you to picture walkie talkies. We have a set for my kids and they love it! It has been so fun to see them be able to chat with each other through the house playing games. But my favorite thing to use it for is when I send it with my oldest when he plays down the street.
I love having the ability to know that He can talk to me if he needs me and that I can chat with him if I need him to come home or just to touch base. Now there also has been a couple of times when I messaged him or he has messaged me and the other one didn’t get the message simply because we sat down our walkie talkie and were not close enough to hear the message when it came through. There have been other times when I needed him to reply quickly but I had to sit and wait for a message to come back through. Even though he could have heard it right when I sent it, I still have to wait for him to decide to message me back.
The third and final form of communication I want you to think about is simply being able to call someone from your phone. When someone picks up on the other end you can actually have a conversation. This is not a one-sided form of communication, that would be super awkward on a phone call. It also is really convenient when you need a reply quickly. You don’t have to wait, the person on the other line can simply speak back immediately. This form of communication is by far the easiest in relaying and receiving information.
Are we talking with God? Are we listening to God when He speaks to us? Where would you say your communication falls with God? Are you using a baby monitor where only you speak to him, a walkie talkie where you speak to Him, and sometimes you hear Him, but other times you miss His messages? Or is he on your frequent calls list where you can have back and forth real time communication, and even if you missed his call you know exactly where to listen to His voicemail?
For almost my entire life I would say that my relationship with God would fall into the category of being one sided, I was using a baby monitor and I didn’t even realize it. I was super active in the church, I was praying. I felt like I was doing everything I needed too. And even though I was checking off the boxes I was not giving time to God to speak to me, or really I just wasn’t giving myself the time to listen or recognize when God was trying to speak to me.
Maybe you feel like you are in that same boat. SO what do we do? How do we get out of that funk? For me, the biggest step forward was first realizing that there was a problem to begin with. My specific problem was not knowing how to even hear God. I knew what it felt like to feel the holy ghost and to be comforted, and all of those things. Which is amazing and wonderful, but I didn’t understand how God spoke to me until I allowed myself to believe that He was already trying to. That all I had to do was give time and an open mind to then let thoughts and promptings come through. Essentially it was like that picture of Christ where He is standing at the door, the door is closed, and there is no door knob. He is there, already. But we have to make some type of effort to open that door for Him. And as soon as we do, as soon as we open that door- We can see and hear him in our lives.
What would change in your life if you opened that door, or even if you opened it just a few inches wider? Maybe you will feel less anxiety, maybe you will have more patience with your kids, or maybe you simply just feel His spirit more abundantly in your life.
We can all use Him more in our life. We can all benefit from having God be on our most recent call list. We all are capable of opening the door.
Today’s journal prompt/ thought to ponder is- What communication device am I currently using with God and do I need to switch to something better?
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I hope to see you back here tomorrow morning for part two of your spiritual checkup!
Leaving you with hopefully a little more stillness, an open mind and a desire to connect with God.
One Comment
Listening to this episode made me realize I don’t give time for God to communicate with me. How can He communicate with me when I am using a “baby monitor” to hear Him. Thank you, this was eye opening and so helpful.