How Does God Speak to You?

[Anonymous]

My shelf has broken. I’m trying to pick up the pieces and decide what to keep and what to throw away. Right now I am not sure what I believe. So I want to raise a couple fundamental questions.

[Anonymous]

The simple answers are;

1. yes, I believe in God. I get a spiritual confirmation from time to time that this is all part of a plan. I am a small part of this plan.

2. I have difficulty praying & feeling that God is listening. Especially since my FC.

I feel inspiration from time to time like walking in the park with my dog.

Or, playing with my Grandchildren

Or, talking to my children & marveling that they have turned out the way they have.

Or, talking with another human being and making a connection.

Or, gaining a spiritual insight into a principle of the Gospel.

Or, hearing a great piece of music & feeling lifted up.

Or, seeing a Tennessee Williams play (for example) & feeling inspired.

Or, doing Family History & discovering another relative.

The reasons go on if I let them.

[Anonymous]

1. I believe there is at least a Creator God for the very reason I don’t think this could have all happened spontaneously. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the Big Bang or evolution. At the most basic level all I really believe is that there is a higher power.

2. I’m not sure God does communicate with me. I sometimes feel what I believe is the Spirit, but experiences with it are random and fleeting (in circumstances similar to and as varied as what MM describes above). I have an inexplicable testimony of the Savior.

I am essentially a Deist – I believe God may have started it all and lets it run its course.

[Anonymous]

I feel my concept of God is broad and deep and I can express it in many different ways depending on who I am talking to.

If I am talking with atheist friends I can say I define God into existence. “The universe and life came to be through some power or circumstance, whatever that is, I call it God.” “The source of love, that is God.” I don’t make God adhere to some preconceived idea, God is the reality – it then becomes my job to understand the nature of God. Many questions cannot be answered, I believe for a reason.

The way I see it God’s primary language is love, that is how we can know the message is divine. Love that leads to personal growth.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

FaithfulSceptic wrote:

“If you believe in God, why do you believe?

2. How does God speak to you?”

1. I do believe in God. I consider myself a Christian, but I’m not really sure that a crucified savior was necessary for the salvation of Man. My cultural upbringing was Christian, so I choose to stay within that belief system. I have had some spiritual experiences in my life that do not allow me to deny God.

2. God does speak to me. He guides me in my choices. He inspires me in my parenting. I see goodness in small things in my life .. A flower .. Or an interaction with someone. I have prayed about my FC, and felt God had no problem with me stepping away from Mormonism.

[Anonymous]

1. I do believe in God. I can’t deny the spiritual experiences I have had. There is too much order in the universe. I see how houses, bodies, organizations all deteriorate into an unorganized mess if you leave them alone — there is no way this world, the people, etcetera came about by chance. Someone, something organized it.

2. Does God Speak to me? At times in my life I’ve been overwhelmed with spiritual feelings that I attribute to God. Occasionally, strange circumstances combine to make me think God is pulling strings. But I have never had direct communication. The “still small voice” is indistinguishable as a divine voice, or as my own voice. I have always found prayer rather empty. I don’t seem to get answers — I find that if I live my life with hard work, things do work out most of the time. As the humorist Stephen Leacock said “the harder I work, the luckier I get”.

I DON’T believe God speaks to me through my local leaders. They may have flashes of insight like other intelligent men, but they have never convinced me they speak for God. So, I look at leader guidance and church policy as one of many inputs into my decisions, not as if its communication from God.

[Anonymous]

1) I believe in God because I want to believe in God – and because I have had a few experiences I simply can’t explain without something supernatural existing.

2) I have had words come into my mind during blessings that can’t be anything but inspired or even prophetic; I have had thoughts hit me at exact moments that I only can see as inspired, given what followed from them; I have had completely abnormally strong impressions and emotional reactions that I choose to describe as inspiration; I have had one experience that I believe was miraculous.

I have absolutely no idea why those things have happened to me and not others, but I know it has nothing to do with differences in worthiness.

[Anonymous]

FaithfulSkeptic wrote:

My shelf has broken. I’m trying to pick up the pieces and decide what to keep and what to throw away. Right now I am not sure what I believe. So I want to raise a couple fundamental questions.

1. If you believe in God, why do you believe?

2. How does God speak to you?

I feel more hopeful about life when I believe in God. I find it comforting to me. When it stops providing me utility to believe in God, I will stop believing. So far, I feel blessed in my life and I like have a Heavenly Father to attribute that to and to express to others in common language.

God has never spoken to me. I feel things through the spirit, I think things in my mind and feel enlightened or inspired.

Joseph Campbell wrote:

If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

…

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

I have found peace by backing away from proving God and the Universe exist. I turn towards finding my bliss and use myths, spiritual meanings, and symbolism to add meaning to my experience of being alive. I believe in the things that align to my life experience, I frame it in ways that help me feel alive. I try to accept broken shelves are part of life, not problems in life to be avoided.

Don’t fear the broken shelf.

The life you are living is the one you ought to be living.

[Anonymous]

1) My god shelf broke and as a result I’ve found god in more places than I had before. My previous concept of god was restricted, narrowly defined, and finite. Now god is anything and everything, sometimes even nothing.

2) God speaks to me through everything. A beautiful sunset. Hiking deep in the woods. Someone bringing a meal to my house when my family is going through difficult times. A dog nuzzling up to me when I feel like I’m alone. Looking up at the stars and contemplating the first domino to fall. Meditating on how any of this got here. God can exist in my reality and can also exist in thought.

[Anonymous]

I thought that I have always had a belief in God. I realize that I have also had that coupled with doubt. There are times that I say that I believe God exists and there are times I think that this life is all there is. My faith and doubt have been balanced throughout my life it seems. I believe that a healthy belief in a higher power is enabling and comforting, that without there would be less to look towards in this life. That is my feelings on why I believe. For me not believing would be potentially damaging to my outlook on life itself.

God speaks to me when I am still and not distracted with life. When I am at one with my surroundings and open to the universe. I don’t want to sound corny or all peace love and understanding, but I can really feel something unfold within me, almost as if the universe and I are one. I have had spiritual experiences that I believe did not originate from within me alone. I have trouble with thoughts that come to my mind being from God. I have found that it is all too easy to be confused between personal thoughts and direct communication. Maybe they are both interconnected.

The spirit to me is like Zen. No one can tell you whether or not you feel the spirit. And no one can tell you exactly how. There are only guide posts along the way, pointing the general directions.

[Anonymous]

LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:

I have trouble with thoughts that come to my mind being from God. I have found that it is all too easy to be confused between personal thoughts and direct communication. Maybe they are both interconnected.

well said.

I also wonder if it matters. If by praying I come up with inspired thoughts, I can decide to assign that to a supreme being or just that I am glad I came up with some good thoughts on my own…regardless…I hope to find thoughts that lead me to good things in my life.

I lean towards things being interconnected.

[Author]

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