GOD SPEAKS
by dean krippaehne
Sept. 2006

My daughter, Kelsey, one of my three young children, was about six years old at the time. Because money was tight, I was using our house as my office and our home phone for my business calls and because young kids can be, well..., rather noisy at times, my children were well coached in the fine art and proper etiquette of "quieting down" when daddy got a business phone call.

We had a simple code, a hand signal, worked out for when those important calls came in. When I would answer the phone and it was a business call, if my daughters were playing nearby, I would gently but firmly raise my right hand up in the air and hold it there for a few seconds so that they all could see "the signal." It was meant to be a kind of stop sign. Usually my children would see my hand raise up and quietly proceed to another room to play.

On this particular day, however, "proper phone call etiquette" would take on a whole new meaning.

A call came in to me as all three girls were happily playing in our main telephone room. Though they were fully engaged in their delightful songs and laughter I managed to gain their full attention when I raised hand and gave them the "be quiet" signal. Two of my daughters were immediately quiet and started to obediently make their way out of the area but my third daughter, Kelsey, hesitated. It appeared that she was not too happy about having to leave the room right in the middle her fun time and she was about to make her complete displeasure known.

I sensed this and raised my hand again and gave her a quick "no, no" shake of my head. This new action of mine did not seem to sit well with her. She begin speaking "daddy,.... I want to...," to which I swiftly raised my hand in a jolting fashion, scrunched my eyes, and gave her my patented and emphatic "NO" head shake - as I tried to focus on the conversation with my business caller. She then did one of those six-year-old-shoulder-shrug-foot-stomp-loud-sigh-things and the began to argue her case further. "It's just not fair, we just..." again I cut her off in mid sentence and this time gave her an almost gestapo-type sharp raise of my hand and the meanest, maddest look I could silently contort my face into and then pointed directly down the hall and mouthed the words "GO - NOW!" - as if she were now banished from my sight forever and sentenced to parish via firing squad or by walking the bedroom plank. Argh.

Her lips pouted, her shoulders shrunk and her chin fell to her chest as she begrudgingly left the room.

Maybe ten minutes later, as I was finishing up my business call she came cautiously creeping around the hall corner and back into the room and then stood silently before me. I remember her lips were pressed tight together and she didn't say a word. She just held up a piece of notebook paper with some coloring on it and pointed it toward my face. I will never forget the picture she had drawn.

It was the face of a miserable looking man with blood-shot angry eyes and steam shooting out of his ears. His face looked mean and evil, as if it might explode off of his body at any moment obliterating anything and everything in it's vicinity. There was a name given to the evil man in her picture - it was written just underneath his hideous face. The name read - "DADDY." Ouch.

Does God ever speak to you? If so - in what way does He choose to communicate?

In this scenario that was playing out in my life who do you think that God was most concerned with disciplining - the six year old child - or a six foot four, 200-plus-pound man that was losing his temper and scaring the daylights out of his young child?

If I am being totally honest with myself I would have to admit that when God speaks to me I quite often don't very much like what He has to say or how He chooses to say it. But I need to hear it and I need to act upon what I hear - because God is usually right. (OK, God is always right)

In the Bible, in John 14:26 Jesus says "But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." And shortly after that Jesus continues in John 16:13 "But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth."

God so wants to speak to us in all of the areas of our life. And what God desires to say - we need to hear. But we have to listen close. You and I can't very well hear God if we are far away.

I love the line in James 4:8 that says "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." For learning to recognize the voice of God, wherever He may choose speak or whomever He may choose to speak through - that seems like a pretty good place to start.

John 14:26
"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

John 16: 13
"But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth."

James 4:8
"Come near to God and he will come near to you."

Matthew 15:18
"But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'