Why Doesn’t God Speak to Me Like That?

I used to think God didn’t find very much good about me. I remember sitting in a group of friends who all were praying and asking God to give them these miraculous and beautiful gifts. Gifts of dreams, visions, prophecy, healing, and more.

I was so amazed and I desperately desired these giftings. I wanted to be on the in with God, and I hoped that if I prayed hard enough He’d hear me and He’d want me. That He’d meet me in my dreams. He’d lay the gift of healing in my very hands. He’d show me I was significant enough and worthy enough for these things.

And when He didn’t, I felt inadequate, unloved, and ashamed.

After having separation I wrestled with if any of these giftings actually truly still existed. Attending a seminary rooted in tradition and conservative views, you could say only encouraged these thoughts more. And for a while it felt safe to say they didn’t.

So my mind demanded I paint those people out to be delusional and “over spiritual”(whatever that means). I mean they had to be because then somehow it meant God really did love me.

So instead of giftings, I turned to doing. Spending time with people who were hurting and listening to them for however long they needed even if it meant not sleeping. It turned to always being available to my church even when I desperately needed a moment to breathe. It turned to pretending to be nothing and nobody so anybody could mold me into whom they desired. Then when that proved to fail and people took advantage of what I thought was kindness and mercy; I landed right where I left off. Believing those people to be delusional because somehow that meant God really did love me.

The irony is God already really loved me through the excitement, the pain, the confusion, He loved me; He loves me.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I always had love just at the tip of my fingers but I never knew I could grasp it. I never knew I just had to breathe it in. I never knew I only had to let love wash over me.

Now I realize nobody is ever truly and purely delusional. We just get confused sometimes, and often it is that I am confused most times. Gifts of the spirit are beautiful. Every single one. From prophecy to mercy to tongues to administration. Each is beautiful and uniquely designed for the person God so chooses to gift.

Do people take these things out of context? Absolutely.

Do people get hurt and move to opposite extremes? Absolutely.

So how do we find the middle ground?

Love.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.“

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬-‭8‬a ESV‬‬

I realize now God never gave me extraordinary gifts at the expense of my finger tips because there was a much more important lesson for me to learn.

The lesson of love.

Love unearned.

Love, at times, unwanted.

Love surrendered.

Love sacrificed.

Love unconditional.

Love as the center of my life.

I’ll never know why God chose me to learn in this manner.

I’ll never know why it is that I’ve watched so many others get whatever they wanted. Even ones who hold no love in their hearts.

I’ll never know why God gifted me this lesson, but I know it was all for the sake of love.

And for that I am thankful.

Now I see the Lord surely has given me gifts, but what value do they hold in comparison to His love?

Their value can only be found within His love.

All within His eyes.

I never knew a love so kind, never until life broke my mind, and then finally, I could see

That smize of my Savior’s eyes.

But if broken is what I must be to meet His gaze, broken is where I will remain.

That is until the promise of love is fully fulfilled.

Not yet here, but in a time to come, where I will see eternity’s prize.

All within His eyes.