{"id":1373,"date":"2011-09-14T21:01:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T01:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2011-09-14T21:17:11","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T01:17:11","slug":"in-a-whisper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1373","title":{"rendered":"In a Whisper…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!<\/p>\n

Following yesterday\u2019s discussion<\/a> Lord, I\u2019ve been mulling over the whole \u201cWays God talks to us\u201d<\/em> question at length.<\/p>\n

When I speak with people about their relationship with You Father, quite often they express frustration in trying to understand what You desire of them, and feel that they aren\u2019t \u201chearing\u201d<\/em> You as they should be.\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit, early on in my Walk when I began to recognize Your communications, my \u201clogical\u201d<\/em> brain cast them aside as stray thoughts and urges of my own making.\u00a0 I\u2019m not honestly sure at what point that changed, but now I\u2019ve come to count on those intimate \u201cnudges\u201d<\/em> in my daily life to keep my feet on the stalwart path, and my heart focused on You.<\/p>\n

Today was a perfect example.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t really decided how I should approach the topic of Your speaking to us, but as I was quietly reading my YouVersion Bible<\/a> over lunch, I reached a passage You felt fit the situation\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the one.\u201d You whispered.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The LORD said, \u201cGo out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.\u201d Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d \u2013 1 Kings 19:11-13 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love it when You do that Father.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

When my journey to You was in it\u2019s infancy Lord, I looked for some grandiose sign announcing Your presence; the powerful wind, the earthquake, the fire\u2026 Something that would scream \u201cHey Phil!\u00a0 Here I am!\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 What I realized over time however, was that You were there with me all the time; I just wasn\u2019t looking in the right place.\u00a0 As Elijah found You at Horeb, I found You in the Stillness\u2026 In the whispers.<\/p>\n

Finding those moments; those times of spiritual clarity where Your voice rings out through the noise we all live in, has become an important part of my days.<\/p>\n

I yearn for those whispers Father\u2026 for those nudges that guide my way.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Heavenly Father,<\/p>\n

I thank you Lord, for Your faithful presence in our lives each day.\u00a0 Please open our hearts and our minds to better recognize Your influence all around us.\u00a0 Help filter out the \u201cnoise\u201d<\/em> that congests our spirits, and bring us that peace that can only come through an intimate communion with our Creator.<\/p>\n

In Jesus\u2019 Name we pray,<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father! Following yesterday\u2019s discussion Lord, I\u2019ve been mulling over the whole \u201cWays God talks to us\u201d question at length. When I speak with people about their relationship with You Father, quite often they express frustration in trying to understand what You desire of them, and feel that they aren\u2019t \u201chearing\u201d You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[359,1586,45,550,915,508,1776,1859,15,1862,173,848,871,42,844,858,966,1332,1812,686,780,140,273,593,916,894,1860,1849,51,1863,269,109,133,141,274,203,1525,846,495,887,81,25,587,572,217,69,585,683,699,92,732,493,334,95,512,1330,66,114,730,697,339,1019,663,565,1861,791,499,819,1292],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-bible","tag-book-of-1-kings","tag-clarity","tag-communication","tag-dear-lord","tag-discussion","tag-earthquake","tag-elijah","tag-faith","tag-faithful-presence","tag-father","tag-filter","tag-fire","tag-focus","tag-follow","tag-frustration","tag-god","tag-gods-voice","tag-gods-whispers","tag-guide","tag-hearing","tag-heart","tag-hearts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-honesty","tag-horeb","tag-hypocritical-worship","tag-influence","tag-intimate-communion","tag-jesus","tag-journey","tag-love","tag-mind","tag-minds","tag-moments","tag-niv","tag-noise","tag-open","tag-passage","tag-path","tag-peace","tag-power","tag-powerful","tag-pray","tag-quiet","tag-read","tag-realize","tag-recognize","tag-relationship","tag-situation","tag-speak","tag-speaking","tag-spirit","tag-spirits","tag-spiritual-nudges","tag-stillness","tag-thank-you","tag-thoughts","tag-understand","tag-union","tag-used","tag-wednesday","tag-whispered","tag-whispers","tag-whole","tag-wind","tag-yearn","tag-youversion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Child-Whispering-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-m9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}