Why Doesn’t God Just Talk To Me?
Why doesn’t God just talk to me? Have you asked that before? Why should it require hundreds of years, a bunch of dead old guys from who knows where, and something called a “manuscript tradition,” for you to hear from God?
So, here’s a few reasons why it’s better for you that God has chosen to speak to you through his Word rather than waking you up in the middle of the night with an audible, “Hey you! Get out of bed and listen up!”:
First, if God spoke to you there would always be that lingering doubt that you might have been wrong. What if it was just the late night Taco Bell run and not some divine communication? You would spend a lifetime second guessing your private word from God with never having an external reference point or standard by which to judge the truthfulness of your experience.
Second, if God spoke to you, what happens if God says something contradictory to someone else? Who is the judge? Are you? Are they? Who decides? You would need some external reference point by which to help judge each other’s claims.
Third, if God spoke to you, what if you were to forget, remember wrongly, or even experience some tragic brain injury? These words would be potentially lost forever. How might the words of God be preserved?
Might you write them down for future generations? That sounds like an interesting plan . . . a pretty good idea. Too bad it’s not original. Of course anyone who read what you wrote down could always think, “Well, that’s fine and good that God spoke to so and so, but why doesn’t he just speak to me?” This could go on and on.
You see, the truth is that God has spoken to you. He has preserved his Word. It has been written down by multiple authors across generations communicating one over arching story, providing you with an external reference point to know what God has to say to you today.
“For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man,” the Apostle Peter wrote, “but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Instead of a subjective experience where God “speaks” to you, you have the objective words of God, passed down through the ages, affirmed by the church, and applied by the Spirit.
I love what one contemporary theologian said, “If you want to hear God speak: read the Bible. If you want to hear God speak audibly: read the Bible out loud.” Rather than giving you a private experience God has given you his precious and abiding word that will never fail.
Why doesn’t God speak to you?
The answer is, he already has.
Take and read.