SCT 3: Dine in or take out?

by Darren Rusco

Note: I'm working on a book about hearing God's voice. The process of writing is a slog for me, so I decided to work it out through blog posts, hoping that would help me get ideas out to print, and also give readers a chance to feedback and help form the end product.

Chapter 3

Dine In or Take Out?

Communication is the expression of God’s nature

It’s one thing to believe God CAN speak to us but it is another thing to wonder if he DESIRES to speak to us. And how often does God desire to speak? Will he speak only on his timing? Will he speak when I ask him to speak? Is God a quiet introvert with few words or is he a chatty extravert talking more than I would ever want?

There’s a story in Genesis 18 that reveals a part of God’s personality when it comes to revelation. Three men show up at the home of Abraham and Sarah. The couple eagerly show hospitality to the traveling men, insisting they stay and enjoy freshly baked bread and some roasted beef. The three men are grateful for the gesture and agree to stay. One of the traveling men offers a prophetic word to Abraham: “This time next year, your wife will have a son.” Sarah overhears this and laughs - she was 89 years old and Abraham was 99! This would be a far-fetched word, except that, according to the previous chapter, earlier that year God appeared in person to Abraham and Sarah to promise them a son, born through Sarah, and even told them the boy should be named Isaac! In that encounter, Abraham was the one who laughed. It’s no wonder why God told them to name the boy Isaac, meaning “laughter.” So this current prophecy is actually confirming a recent prophecy, and both encounters evoked a response of laughter.

But at this point of the Genesis 18 story, the writer changes the narrative. The one who gave the prophetic word is no longer a traveling stranger; he is the Lord! In verse 13 we read, “Then the Lord said to Abraham…” The Lord challenged the laughter and the unbelief behind it. He pushed back, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And then he restated the original prophecy yet again. And again, God is patient while his people struggle to believe. This is God continuing to knock. This is God saying a person’s name until he responds.

We learn from the narrative that God’s visit to Abraham and Sarah was for the purpose of announcing the near fulfillment of the promise he originally made many years earlier of a child. But here is where the story takes an unexpected turn. The three men were getting ready to leave with Abraham escorting them away. Then the Lord pauses and asks himself a question: “Should I hide my plan from Abraham?” This part of God’s nature is fascinating because we have an all knowing God who is now working out in his own mind, whether or not he wants to share a secret with Abraham just before he leaves. It’s as if God had a planned revelation to tell Abraham and Sarah about a baby, but after enjoying the afternoon of barbecue and fellowship, he was now persuaded to tell Abraham another secret, one that he hadn’t initially planned on sharing. And so the answer to the question the Lord posed to himself was, no, he would not hide his plans.

So God told Abraham another secret; this one was about his plans to visit the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, from which he had heard a great outcry over the evil in those cities, and he wanted to see for himself if the wickedness matched the outcry. Again we see a mysterious facet of God’s nature, that he wants to visit these cities to see if the outcry was true, as if he wouldn’t have already known. Immediately Abraham discerned the coming judgment to these cities and so he pleaded with the Lord to rescue the righteous in the city and negotiated with the Lord that if 10 righteous people were found in the city, they would be saved from the destruction.

It is important to pause and reflect on a part of God’s revealed nature that is rarely spoken about, yet is important for the growth of hearing God’s voice. God, while being fully omniscient, sovereign, and eternal will often reveal himself in our understanding of time and space. This is God, with an eternal plan, yet seemingly responding to humanity in real time. Genesis 18 is written as though it were fully possible that God would never share the secrets of Sodom to Abraham. The story is also written as though if Abraham was not hospitable, then perhaps he never receives the first prophetic word as well. But he was hospitable, which led to the second word, where God says in 18:21:

I am going down to see if their (Sodom and Gomorrah) actions are as wicked as I have heard. If not, I want to know.

Who was reporting the actions of the cities to the Lord? Was this a prayer from people? Or perhaps a report from angels? And how does God not already know the answer? He says he will travel there and personally investigate. And after all of this, Abraham begins a process to negotiate with God and convince him not to destroy the cities if there are righteous people there. Likely Abraham was concerned for Lot and his family.

This portion of the story verifies important aspects of the revelatory relationship God has with people. Abraham was a friend of God. He interacted with God not as a slave but as a friend. A slave would not negotiate with the master, although Abraham certainly did this with caution.

In all of our understanding of God on the intellectual and doctrinal level, the path of least resistance is to focus on God’s revealed sovereignty and eternality. And if we land here and stay here, we will be tempted to take a fatalistic approach to God’s voice. That is to say, because God is sovereign and eternal, he will do whatever he is going to do. It wouldn’t matter to listen to God. If God told you he was going to destroy a city, would you try to convince him out of doing it? Or would you announce the plan of destruction to your audience. But Abraham was no fatalist. Those who know God intimately know a broader spectrum of who God is - a God who communicates in real time, who responds to our words and thoughts and emotions in real time, who allows us to press in and contend with him in real time.

Let’s get back to the question of who spoke to God about Sodom. Again, this is a communication story with God. Imagine the tone of the report that someone is bringing to God about the evil happening in the city. The story insinuates that the reporter is using a strong or exaggerated tone to the Lord, so much so that God wants to verify it in person. It’s a prayer for justice, for God to act. Whoever filed this report was also no fatalist. There was an expectation that because of this report, God would do something.

God is inviting the conversation. We are welcome to contend with him. This is who he is. He wants us to communicate with him with honest words, tones, and emotions; not with polite religiosity.

Ultimately, we see the longing of God’s heart for communication and fellowship. He demonstrated his heart simply by showing up in the first place, but after experiencing fellowship with his friends Abraham and Sarah, he wanted to communicate even more. We have a basic understanding from the Bible that God wants his people to be hospitable to other people, but God also longs for us to be hospitable to him. Hebrews 13:2 seems to point to this account with Abraham and Sarah saying:

Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

This reminds us that our God is a fellowship God. To grow in hearing his voice we must intentionally grow in hospitality towards him, preparing our hearts to fellowship when he arrives.

So then what?

When people tell me they are struggling to hear God’s voice, usually the solution is to temporarily pause the idea of listening and instead focus on fellowship, and then see what flows from there. So often when we want to hear God’s voice, it’s as if we want to pop into the drive thru, grab our food, and get out. In my life, I have found that I end up with this mindset without realizing it. It’s a slow drift into a dysfunctional relationship with God.

Quality time is a building block of any intimate relationship. If you are in a marriage or close friendship, and you don’t have a desire for quality time with that person, then your relationship lacks intimacy. And the solution to this problem cannot be to simply discipline yourself to spend quality time with the other. You would need to dig deep and ask why the desire for quality time is not present. If you told me you had to discipline yourself to spend quality time with your spouse, I would tell you that you have a dysfunctional relationship. In health, quality time is a natural and authentic outflow of the relationship.

Yet within Christianity we have these ideas called the “spiritual disciplines,” where we force ourselves to read the Bible and pray in a consistent manner, even when we don’t want to; and then we form accountability groups to somehow find further incentive to stay disciplined. While certain seasons may call for discipline, it is fundamentally dysfunctional to live your entire life disciplining yourself to spend time with God. At some point we need to ask: if it’s a discipline, is it quality? Imagine having a group of people holding you accountable to whether or not you spent time with your spouse. Imagine having a daily checklist for spending time with your spouse, as though it were a task to accomplish. Would you spend an entire marriage disciplining yourself to spend quality time with your spouse, without investigating why it is not a natural desire? Perpetual discipline is a sign that you might have an addiction to take out.

Meanwhile God is after a fellowship meal with his people. If we want to know what our Father is like, we just need to look at his Son. And Jesus loved to hang around and eat with people. He ate and drank so much that religious people accused him of being a glutton and drunkard. But have you noticed that every person who had a meal with Jesus left changed forever? If we could interview these people and ask them the secret, I’m sure they would tell us about the joy of the unhurried meal.

Whether it be Jesus calling out to Zacchaeus, “I must be a guest in your home to today,” or it be Jesus luring Peter to jump from the boat and swim ashore to the awaiting fish barbecue; his offer extends to us today. He knocks. We hear his voice and open the door. He comes in and shares a meal together as friends. We get changed by his presence.

But for many cultures and subcultures in the world, the fellowship meal is an uncommon experience. In this culture, eating is for the sake of quickly satisfying hunger. So often, this happens alone, in a short period of time, while watching TV or scrolling the phone. Even in most churches, the fellowship meal of communion is rarely experienced. More often communion is a very quick and personal moment without feast or fellowship, using token food symbols. Contrast this with many other cultures around the world where the meal takes hours and is full of long conversation and fellowship, where time is no factor. If time is your master and not your servant, you will never experience the fellowship meal. This is the backdrop of the meals people shared with Jesus and the invitation for which he offers in Revelation 3:20. How will we understand the metaphorical fellowship meal if we don’t have the experience of the literal fellowship meal?

And so we should ask the tough questions. Why do you spend 15 minutes reading your Bible everyday? Why do you feel guilty if you don’t? Why do you pray before a meal? Why do you open up a meeting with prayer? Why do you pray on your own? Why do you have an accountability group asking you if you accomplished your devotional goals? Is it for the gratification of checking off a list? Is it because we were taught this is how good Christians behave?

If we want to grow in hearing God’s voice, we need to understand that a relationship is not a task that gets accomplished. The same Christians who proclaim “Christianity is not a religion but rather a relationship,” will later proclaim “I did my devotions today.” Accomplishing tasks is the first sign of religious behavior. Martha brought a complaint to Jesus while hosting one of these fellowship meals: “Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.” But Jesus was not in agreement. He told her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42) What had Mary discovered? She wasn’t “accomplishing” anything, she simply knew how good it was to enjoy the fellowship and presence of Jesus.

Peter was desperate for the same thing. John 21 records the disciples fishing from a boat and when Peter discovered Jesus was on shore, he skirted the work and jumped in the water and swam to shore to be with Jesus, where a fish barbecue awaited them. There was no task. Just a longing for fellowship.

How does this meal work?

So how do we have a meal with Jesus when he is not physically here? After I discovered that I could hear God’s voice, I was determined to figure out the answer to this question. I started with a few Biblical ideas that convinced me this meal could be reality.

The Revelation 3:20 passage is the meal invitation from Jesus even though he left earth long before this. Jesus was inviting the church to a meal without his physical presence. I knew that the Lord of the first century church is my Lord also. I wanted to understand this offer in the way they would have understood it.

Jesus also said in John 16:7,

But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.

I had a suspicion that if I was given the choice of having either the presence of the Holy Spirit in my daily life or physical Jesus in my daily life, I would obviously choose Jesus. But here we have Jesus saying the disciples would be better off with him gone and with the Spirit present. This convinced me that I did not know the fellowship of the Spirit in the way that I could.

In Ephesians 1:19, Paul prayed for Christians to “understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him.” I concluded that if Christians could be without understanding of God’s power in Ephesus, a city where great revival power was demonstrated just years before this writing, then I absolutely had a deficit understanding as well.

So I marched forward, pursuing more of God, convinced there was more. This posture of pursuit was the best place I could be. For two years, about 4 times per week, I walked through some quiet riverside trails seeking these answers - seeking the meal with Jesus, seeking the fellowship of the Spirit, seeking the power of God. Every single day, I would invite Jesus to go on this walk with me. I did this hundreds of times. But it wasn’t about the number. This was the first time in my life I was not task driven. I was accomplishing nothing, and it probably looked like a waste of time. To this day I have never really told the full stories of what happened on those river trails. Some things are too sacred to share. But I experienced everything I was after.

I wish I could tell you three easy steps to have a fellowship meal with Jesus. But this is often the failure of how-to books. It’s more mysterious and dynamic than that. And hopefully that’s enough to spark something in your own life. I can tell you that it’s possible and I can tell you it’s worth the risk of pursuit.