17. How, where, and through what means I connect with God may be different from how others connect.  

(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.) 

Do you sometimes feel pressured to have the same experience of God that others do?

Have you personally explored ways of connecting with God outside of your own tradition or upbringing?

Is it possible that there are meaningful ways of connecting with God that you haven’t discovered yet?

Spend some time reflecting on what your answers to these questions tell you. Listen to what Jesus might want to tell you about these ideas.

Once we begin to hear God regularly, we often want others to hear Him as we do. This eagerness is good and can bring glory to God, but it can also create a problem if we put God in a box and expect others’ journeys to be the same as ours.

We must remember that the way we hear God may be unique to us. God created us one-of-a-kind, and He has limitless ways to communicate and connect with us. Put together, these two truths mean there are almost infinite ways that God can converse with us. It is important then to let everyone discover their unique ways of hearing God.

We should be happy to share our experiences of hearing God while restraining our desire to project our experiences onto another as normative. We should also be reluctant to judge how others connect with God. We can trust God to find the best ways to meet them—even if those ways of connecting make us uncomfortable.

During my college years I spent a summer internship in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. At one point I found myself in a small country church that practiced snake handling. Now holding a rattlesnake may not be my way of hearing God, but the faith of those who did it still inspires me. Although this may be an extreme example, I think it is true that in our Christian culture we tend to stay in our own religious traditions and are reluctant to explore or embrace other forms of worshiping God.

God is much bigger than our traditions and Christians today have a wide variety of worship practices and styles which can present rich opportunities for those who desire to hear God.