I first attended Denver Seminary because I didn\u2019t hear anything from God.
\nI was transitioning from work in cardiovascular research to collegiate ministry. Three years later, I realized my need for deeper theological foundations and began researching seminaries. I narrowed my choices to Denver Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School\u2014both great schools, and what I felt was a coin-flip decision.
\nFor weeks I\u2019d asked God to lead me to one seminary or the other. I sought friends and family to pray and discern God\u2019s lead with me. Facing an enrollment deadline, I decided to seek God\u2019s voice on this critical decision by fasting. Three days later, I had heard nothing and was terribly hungry\u2014not the discernment process I\u2019d hoped for. Having no sense of God\u2019s specific leading, I decided on Denver Seminary for two reasons: my best friend lived here, and I wanted to snowboard. Those were the tiebreakers, and neither seemed very spiritual to me.
\nMost of us have asked similar life questions, wanting God to speak into relationship, occupation, economic, or ministry decisions. But for some, the earnest desire to know God\u2019s pleasure is met with confusion. Are they just not listening, or is God speaking at all?
\nDallas Willard suggests that there are three common, though mistaken, interpretations of how God speaks to us. The message-a-minute view assumes that God will always tell you what to do if you are listening or willing to ask. The it\u2019s-all-in-the-Bible view is well intended but ignores \u201cthe need for personal divine instruction within the principles of the Bible yet beyond the details of what it explicitly says.\u201d The whatever- comes view assumes a determinism of God that eliminates relational discernment with Him because everything that happens is believed to be the guidance of God.
\nAssuming the Living God does speak to His people today, then how does He do so? And how should His people posture themselves as listeners?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I first attended Denver Seminary because I didn\u2019t hear anything from God. I was transitioning from work in cardiovascular research to collegiate ministry. Three years later, I realized my need for deeper theological foundations and began researching seminaries. I narrowed my choices to Denver Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School\u2014both great schools, and what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}