Some time ago, I was able to visit an old friend I hadn’t seen in some 10 years. As is typical of such encounters, we spent the time catching up with what each of us has been up to since we last saw each other. As my friend spoke, she kept repeating a phrase whenever she spoke about making major life decisions. It was one we’ve all heard, possibly used ourselves: God told me.
She was trying to let me know she had been following God’s leading.
I think I understand the sense of what my friend was trying to convey. She is a believer in God. And we believers are told to seek God’s direction in making our life decisions. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” we read. “Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). She was trying to let me know she had been following God’s leading in the years we hadn’t seen each other.
But I was left with a deep sense of unease with how easily she attributed her decisions to direct instructions from God—almost like she was Moses hearing from God at Mount Sinai. I wish I’d spoken up then. But, like most conversations, it was only after some reflection that my sense of unease found clearer expression. So, below are the five reasons I think it was dangerous for her to have spoken the way she did.
1. It Can Make Us Proud
Of course, this isn’t the intent of those who say “God told me.” But it often creates a class of special Christians: those who hear directly from God. So we must be very careful. For pride is subtle. If Satan can’t make us proud about our material possessions, he’ll settle for our spiritual accomplishments.
If Satan can’t make us proud about our material possessions, he’ll settle for our spiritual accomplishments.
I have often wondered why Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 11 and why he wrote it the way he did. The Corinthian believers were enamoured with some Christian teachers who were boasting about their spiritual gifts and visions. To counter these false teachers, Paul had to reveal some of his own spiritual visions to let the Corinthians know he’d also heard from God, in spectacular ways. However, Paul also seems hesitant, even ashamed, to talk about these things. In fact, he describes himself as a fool no fewer than six times in that chapter. Thus, Paul clearly deemed it foolish to boast about one’s private revelations from God. This is a warning for us.
2. It Locks Us Into Bad Decisions
Whenever a Christian tells you “God told me”, it becomes impossible for you to counsel them against their decision. I recall a case many years ago where a brother had proposed marriage to a sister in the church I attended. Their courtship had been rocky, so rocky that the church leadership had asked the brother to end their relationship. But he responded to their counsel by telling them God had told him that the lady was his wife. He subsequently went on to have a traumatic and tumultuous marriage. No one was surprised.
It becomes impossible for you to counsel them against their decision.
We are fallen and weak people. We’re prone to making bad decisions. This is one of the reasons why God puts us in a community with other Christians, so that they can speak to us. Whenever these brothers and sisters, many of whom are more spiritually mature than we are, see anything objectively wrong with our behaviour, it is their duty to warn us. So we should be careful before we use something subjective like “God told me” to override counsel.
3. It Prevents Us From Growing in Discernment
What is discernment? Discernment is the ability to make wise decisions by understanding and distinguishing between right and wrong in our thoughts and actions. Discernment is like having a mental compass that guides you in making choices, especially in complex or ambiguous situations. According to scripture, a key to growing in discernment is being saturated by scripture.
The writer of Hebrews wrote about this issue. “Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:12-14).
God wants us to be able to make wise decisions. To assist us with that, he’s given us his word.
According to this passage, there are two groups of people: (a) children and (b) mature people. The children can drink milk. But the mature can eat solid food. These people are a similar age in the faith, only some have chosen to remain children. For the mature are those who’ve had their powers of discernment trained. They’ve taken the word of God and trained themselves to live by it. Those described as “children” haven’t. God wants us to be able to make wise decisions. To assist us with that, to help us grow in discernment, he’s given us his word.
4. It’s Rare for God to Directly Address Believers
Regardless of your position in the cessationist against continuationist debates about spiritual gifts, we can all agree that when we read the New Testament, we don’t see God’s direct verbal instructions to believers as the normal way in which he leads them. In fact, a careful reading shows that revelations of God’s instructions were few and far in-between.
Paul didn’t expect audible guidance from God in this matter.
For example, when Paul was writing to the Corinthians to give them instructions on principles for marriage, he said clearly: “I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgement” (1 Corinthians 7:25). Whatever Paul is writing to them was not an audible verbal instruction he received from God, but rather his own call based on his reasoning based on biblical principles and truth.
There’s an important point to be made here. Paul didn’t wait for divine instruction. He didn’t even expect audible guidance from God in this matter. Paul didn’t tarry in prayer, frenetically pleading for a vision or something like that. Instead, he distilled wisdom from his own experience because, as he tells the Corinthians, with a tinge of irony: “I think that I too have the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 7:40).
5. It Depreciates the Bible
The previous point brings us to this one. When we rely overly on direct leadings from God for making decisions, we tend to depreciate the place of being led by the written word of God, the Bible. That is meant to be our guide in making decisions in all of life (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Peter made this point when he wrote: “we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). Remarkably he’s contrasting this “more sure” word with God’s audible voice heard at the Transfiguration.
God’s written word is no less precious than those words spoken by God.
At the very least, this means God’s written word is no less precious than those words spoken by God. Only Peter goes further, signalling that the written word is more sure. How can he say that? We don’t need to rely on forgetful memories and fallen people. Being in possession of something God has written means we can return to it and turn it over, again and again, as we meditate on God’s words.
By now, I’m sure some of my readers are wondering to themselves: does this man not want us to hear from God? Of course I do! I am simply making the argument that we don’t need an audible voice from heaven to hear from God. Rather, our focus should be on learning to hear God speak to us from the scriptures.
I Do Really Want You to Hear From God
I have a habit of revisiting important WhatsApp conversations. As I read and reread them, I get nuances and additional context that I didn’t the first time. Reading the Bible is like that. We can’t plumb the depths of its meaning in a single sitting, which is why God has given us a lifetime to know him deeper and deeper as we read it over and over.
We have a lamp shining in a dark place to guide us as we walk this Christian life.
If I were having that conversation with my friend again, the previous paragraph would be my response to her. God does indeed speak to us. But the primary way this happens is through his word. Let us be careful not to be over-reliant on our subjective impressions, and let us not put too much weight on them to direct us. Rather, as Peter told us, we have a lamp shining in a dark place to guide us day by day as we walk this Christian life on our way to the heavenly city.
