Learning to Recognize

In today’s Bible Study, I learnt two things. Firstly, I discovered that in order to experience God, we must first learn to recognize His work around us.

I was surprised that it’s the word ‘around’, not ‘within’. I used to think that we need to experience God within us (you know, like feel His peace, voice, etc) so that we would know that He exists & is working in our lives.

But today, I realized that it is not the experience that comes first, but first being able to discern & recognize God’s presence & work around us, before we can even begin to really & truly experience Him in our lives.

Upon realizing this, I became impatient & kept asking God how to recognize, how to recognize? But then I realized that it is by being in & building a close relationship with Him that I can slowly learn to recognize His voice.

Even when we keep pets, it would take some time of repeating, rehearsing & even more time spent, before the pet would begin to recognize our voice. In the Bible, we are referred to as sheep tended by the Shepherd (i.e. Jesus). And if we stay close with Him, it would be a matter of time that we will soon clearly recognize His voice… then truly begin to experience a growing relationship with Him.

Secondly, it suddenly dawned upon me that often, I may not find the answers that I’m looking for in life, probably because I could have been asking the wrong questions. There are so many things that we can wonder & be worried about. And it is important that we learn how to ask the right questions, before we can discover a good answer.

For example, many people ask “What is God’s will for my life?” I have asked that many times before. And whenever I think that I have discovered it, things may crop up & I find myself wondering if I had ever found it in the first place. Then the mind goes into search mode once again, desperate to seek out a deeper meaning to make my life more meaningful & gratifying.

In today’s Bible Study, the author revealed that this is the wrong question to ask, solely because our focus has been all wrong. The right question should be simply, “What is God’s will?”

By putting this question into the correct perspective, we begin to see that it is about aligning our lives to God’s will, rather than trying to fit God’s will into our lives. All these while, many of us are just thinking, asking & doing the opposite!

To be a believer & Christ’s disciple, our mandate is to follow Jesus, not spend our efforts & time, trying to figure how Jesus fits into our lives!

To follow means that we need to spend time praying, establishing a relationship with Jesus & reading His word, so that all these will speak for itself, what really is God’s will. God’s will is clear to all, even though it may be carried out differently in each of our lives.

And once we find out what that is, we should be thinking how to align our lives to this will of God. Not figure out what kind of life we want to live then see how to fit in parts of how a Christian lifestyle should be & slot these various pieces somewhere in our lives. Amazing revelation! Amen!