What the God

Written by AJ Teaters

The general hierarchy of conversations, from best to worst:

1. Best: Two people having a good back and forth (give and take) communication, feeling comfortable.
2. Good: Two people communicating with some breaks in the conversation because of lack of common interest.
3. Average: Two people talking about a single topic while each person just adds a few words to the conversation.
4. Poor: Two people talking about topics that only interest them staring each other down waiting for the next opportunity to take over the conversation (pirate talkers: looking for the first opportunity to overtake the conversation with their ideas or opinions).
5. What we do to God: One person talking about their problems, needs and opinions; basically word vomiting all over the helpless other person in the one-sided conversation. Not letting the other person give any insight, direction or verbal confirmation of what is being talked about. (one-sided conversation)

Have you ever been on the wrong side of a one-sided conversation? Is there ever a right side of a one-sided conversation? I can honestly say that I have been on the wrong side of many one-sided conversations, and not one of them have I walked away from happy.

The general structure of a one-sided conversation tends to make one person (the one doing the talking) look like a total egocentric jerk; neck vein bulging, drool seeping out of the side of their mouth and eyes popping out of their heads, while the other (the one trying to get a word in) looks like a sick puppy that is being put to sleep; mouth half open, eyes glazed over, leg twitching with anticipation to get out of there as soon as there is a break in the conversation. Why do we do this to each other? Sure, most of us love to hear ourselves talk and could care less if you (the listener) are actually listening. Most people aren’t really listening anyway, right? Most people are just waiting for their turn to talk.

Is that what we are doing to God? Do we not hear from Him because we are too busy listening to ourselves talk?

Is this why God makes it so difficult to understand Him when we ask Him questions? Are we just not asking the right questions? Maybe we aren’t asking them in the right way; should we say, “Pretty please with sugar on top,”? It might have something to do with how faithful we are, or how many sacrifices we have made for Him. Maybe God is just jerking us around, sitting up in Heaven listening but not responding, just watching us getting more and more frustrated with the fact that we never hear anything from Him. Poking His angels in the ribs and pointing at us laughing at our irritation. We all know how annoying it is to have a conversation with someone and have them not respond in the way we want or worse yet not respond at all.

Why do you have to make life so freakin’ difficult?! Just do me a favor and answer my questions and prayers… verbally! Maybe I’m asking the wrong person, Jesus I’ll give you a try. Jesus, talk to your Pops and tell Him that I need some answers, I need to make sure He is listening and the only way that I can be sure is if He talks back! Jesus don’t let me down now, okay? Jesus… did you hear me… GREAT, NOW YOU WON’T TALK TO ME EITHER?! What is up with this family?!

I think the problem is that God does speak to us (in a very straightforward way) and we just don’t listen. So, what are some ways that God could speak to us and have us listen?

· Giant Cosmic Billboard
· Commercials during our favorite prime time TV show (not during the Bachelor though, Jesse doesn’t want anything else on his mind when that show is on).
· Facebook Messages
· Twitter updates
· Emails
· Phone calls (but not at dinner time, then God just turns into a telemarketer)
· Sky writing
· Sponsoring a NASCAR driver
· Having other people speak into our lives (no, that would never catch on)
· Using situations to reveal the path we’re supposed to choose...psshh! Yeah right. That's funny, probably never happens! Ah...good times, good times.

I would love to see a giant cosmic billboard with an answer to my prayers, or to see that I have a message when I log onto facebook with an answer to my prayers. I think Sundays would be 10X cooler if you turned on the TV, flipped to the NASCAR race and saw that one of the cars had the answer to your prayers painted across the hood. Hearing the announcer say, “And the 7 car takes the lead... look at the paint job on that car! What does it say across the hood? ‘Yes Jay, I want you to move to Ecuador to start a church, Love God xoxo.’”

So, why not?

I think God can verbally answer everyone’s prayers but how would we build trust, obedience or faith? I think having God come down and meet me on earth (preferably in the form of Morgan Freeman, I could listen to his voice continuously and never get tired of it. I have to admit that the casting director from Bruce Almighty got it spot on when they cast Morgan Freeman as G-O-D) would be an awesome experience but how would I develop any discernment or discipline? Plus I’m pretty sure if God did show up as Morgan Freeman he would somehow convince me to use my Visa Card at the Olympics.

But being a Christian I have to understand that isn’t how God works. If God took the easy route and answered every prayer by personally speaking (verbally) to us we would have no faith in Him and no wisdom in life.

What do you think? Should God be in a verbal conversation with us? Is there a better way to answer prayers than “feeling” that God said something?