Last Friday I blogged on 11 ways to push God away^[1]. For those who have managed to do this, here are 7 ways God is trying to get your attention. When we go our own way and ignore God’s direction it often goes wrong until we ask for something good to come out from our errors.

Here is how God is trying to reach you:

1. Through people

Your real friends are the friends who tell you the truth, and it’s not always what you want to hear. These people want the best for you. So when they start saying that you are doing something wrong, that you aught to change something or do something you had better take notice, this could be God prompting you.

Sometimes it could be the words of a total stranger that says something really significant to you, they may or may not be aware of this. This too can be a plea from God.

2. You become energised

You hear something, and it motivates you. you spend your free time looking into it. If it is about God you find that you want to read the Bible or pray more. You have more energy all round. If God has plans for you he will give you energy to do it.

Actually this came up in the research of the topic and I am including it although I have never experienced this myself nor heard a testimony or conversation with another Christian. I have included it despite this. If anyone has experienced anything like this I’d love to hear from you.

3. Deeper spiritual sensitivity

Yet another one from the Beliefnet article that I got the energised one from. It says that it follows on from being energised, yet I do have experience of this and I have been far from energised when it happened.

This is when something said on the radio or TV speaks to you about God. It may not be said by a believer in God, or by someone from another religion, but yet God breaks through. We need to remember that all people are made in God’s image whether they accept that or not, so anyone can show the light of God through even if they are not aware of God. If we are open to God even they speak to us.

4. Symbolism

Anything can become a symbol and speak to us of God. Sunlight through a window throwing the shadow of a cross on the ground. A rainbow reminding us that God keeps his promises and can be trusted. One picture that has stayed with me for over 42 years was from the top deck of a bus in Bradley, Huddersfield I saw a rainbow. Where the rainbow touched the earth was the war memorial in Greenhead Park, the cross on the top was shining brightly in the pale morning sunshine. That was God calling me to Huddersfield.

5. A feeling of unrestfulness

In contrast to God speaking by energising you, which as I said above I have no experience of. There is something unrestful in being a Christian. The values of God that I read in the Bible do not rest well with the political systems I see, neither capitalism nor socialism. I am a stranger in a strange land, living life to the values of a new country a heavenly country. Two reactions to this are either to withdraw like a hermit from the world or to get involved, making earth just a little bit more like heaven.

6. Pushing us out of our comfort zone

We all love comfort, and whatever situation we are in we try to find our own comfort zone and live there. I am autistic, I get stressed when routines are interrupted, even my flexible ones. I know how uncomfortable it is to have comfort zones taken, and this time of pandemic has not only taken people’s comfort zones away, but as rules on what is allowed are changing at an alarming rate in response to how the virus is spreading at any given time that any hope of building a new place of comfort is slim. We are in this for the next 12 months, at least. As Christians our comfort zone should be in God. Our own comfort zones are eroded and we feel afraid. There are a lot of scared people out there. Could God be prompting us to go and help them?

7. Coincidence and direction

When things seem to conspire together to all point in one direction, it could be two ore more of the things above, then it is not time to reach for the tin-foil hat and call about how you are being conspired against. The tin-foil hat is no protection against the Holy Spirit in any case. Could this string of coincidences be God shouting at you because you you will not be still enough to hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit? Ask God, if this is God then God will answer.

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If you get it wrong…

I cannot be specific about what to do here. Christianity is not a set of rules with the Bible as the rule book. Christianity is about a people, called the Church in relationship with each other and with God both corporately and individually. It is this relationship to which we are being called and from that place of relationship that we are sent out.

If you look back and realise that God has been calling you to him or calling you to do something and you have missed it, welcome. So have I, this fellowship called Christianity is a failures club. But it is a club that has learned about repentance.

Repentance was the first thing preached when John the Baptist when he was preparing the way for Jesus.
Repentance was the first thing preached by Jesus when he started on his ministry.
Repentance was the first thing preached on the day of Pentecost when the disciples, full of the Holy Spirit, spilled out onto the streets of Jerusalem.
Repent. Turn away from what you were doing and turn back to God. God wants to welcome you into a relationship with him. And if you have fallen out of a relationship with God, God wants to welcome you back again and again and again. Because God loves you.

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^[1]https://stevenhpape.blog/2020/09/25/eleven-ways-to-push-god-away/

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