I’ve believed in our Lord Jesus since I was a pre-teen, I’m now 84 years old. All of my life I’ve heard Christians say Jesus/God spoke to them. I pray, I listen, if our God has spoken to me I have failed to recognize his voice. I stress to know God hears me. I fear I disappoint him. I know not that I’m saved. When I weep I hope it’s the Spirit in me, when if ever will I hear and know it’s the Lord?
This post breaks my heart. You say you have been following Christ since you were a pre-teen till now, at 84, yet feel you've never heard God speaking to you. Or known if he has heard you!
I implore you to forget about feeling. It's like you want to put God in a box, bring him out when you need to "feel" something. God is not a tame lion! (Read the Narnia stories. They express the gospel so well! )
I want to tell you what you have, that I don't! You were saved very young. I will bet you never got drunk over and over, did you? I bet you never did elicit drugs, or slept with a lot of women who were not your wife. I assume you starting reading your Bible and it kept you on the straight and narrow. I am sure you lived for God, never getting beat up in brawls. Maybe you helped kids or the poor. You probably faithfully did your ministry. I hope you loved the least of these!
In other words, your whole life, you were safe and protected. You never had to wake thinking there was no God, like I did for about 8 years, wondering how I could go on, without some kind of God. You never damaged your mind and soul, like I did playing music professionally in bars for a living. (And all that entails).
In other words, although you weren't perfect, you had a good life living for God. You didn't spend nights weeping, crying out to a God that wasn't there, because of your own vanity and arrogance. When God saved you, he just grabbed you, shook your hand and said, "Welcome home."
God had to battle for my soul. He sent people to pray for me, to witness to me. I needed a supernatural experience to believe. And to start healing from all the things I had done to myself!
God loves you, and he trusts you. It took God 25 years of me being saved, probably to reach the Christian maturity you were as a pre-teen. God doesn't love me more because I was stubborn and selfish. He didn't think I was better because he had so much to do shaping me into the image of Christ. God relied on you to keep serving and loving him, when he was pulling me back from the edge. (Not that Gid couldn't do both at once!)
God loves you, because you are a faithful servant. I'm more like a project that God has to keep working on. As I said before, my husband never heard God speaking, and it's been hard for him. Yet he has been faithful and upright. He knows God is real, even during the times he struggled. God needs both kinds of Christians, and perhaps a lot of other types, too!
"Heavenly Father I pray for this person that you would renew the joy of your salvation, and help him remember is commitment to you. Help him to let go of expectations for what he thinks his relationship with you should be, and show him instead, the reality of his lifetime commitment to you. Give him peace and comfort, ease his mental and physical pain. Encourage him as he continues to walk this narrow road. In Jesus name I pray, Amen!"
PS. Do you keep a prayer journal? I did for years. I wrote down important prayers, and then I wrote down when they were answered. Only small things were answered at first. I kept dating the day those prayers were answered. One day, I realized almost all my prayers were answered. Except my father and sister getting saved. My father was 83 and dying of Congestive Heart Failure. I had prayed for him for 31 years, my grandmother all the years since he was born. God saved him in 2011, and he died 5 months later. My father had witnessed to my sister, but her heart was cold. Two years ago, she started telling me about going to church with a neighbour. I finally approached her about her relationship with God. God was gracious to save her, even though I had almost given up.
When you see prayers being answered, you realize God is hearing you, over and over. Now, I pray daily for my children and grandchildren, for my sister's husband, and for my mother. I am confident my prayers will be answered, just like the other prayers God has answered over the last 40 years. I will keep praying for you. Not for signs and wonders, but for you to have peace that God hears your prayers, and he is speaking to you, with the small still voice Elijah heard.
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