SCT 4: You got the wrong guy! God's voice to our identity

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 4

You got the wrong guy!

God’s voice to our identity

Have you ever felt disqualified from hearing God’s voice or from having a role in his kingdom? It’s an easy trap to fall into because our world, and often the church as well, is looking to identify your failures and missteps to disqualify you from most things. And we often take this posture in front of God. But this simply is not the normal operation of God. The entire Bible is a story of God qualifying the least likely people. Jesus functioned in the same way. In Luke 8, a man who was probably the most demonized man in the history of demonized men was set free and immediately commissioned to be an evangelist. Jesus qualified him without even a class, let alone a seminary education. And so God speaks to the identity of our hearts in the places where we, or others, have disqualified ourselves. I call this aspect of God’s heart his mercy communication.

God revealed his communication is merciful through his dealing with Gideon. God’s first act of mercy was that he even showed up and spoke in the first place. Judges 6-7 details the events of God and Gideon.

The nation of Midian had taken control of Israel with vicious authority. Gideon the Israelite was the youngest in his family, part of the weakest clan in his tribe, part of an Israel nation who valued societal strength. Gideon was the lowest of nobodies.

An angel shows up to Gideon and greets him: “Mighty hero! The Lord is with you!” There was nothing heroic or mighty about Gideon. He was literally hiding to save his life from the Midianites at this moment. But this is part of God's nature of communication with his people. According to Romans 4:17, God calls things that are not as though they are. Or said another way, He calls things that do not exist into existence. God will call a person a mighty hero while they are still weak and insignificant.

This is exactly what God did with Abram. In Genesis 17:6 the Lord showed up to Abram and announced he was changing his name. I suspect Abram might have been relieved to have his name changed. The name Abram means “exalted father”. In a culture where names have great significance, I wonder if Abram was embarrassed to have this name while he was incapable of bearing any children. Certainly in this culture a married couple battled the shame of infertility, but to have a name such as Abram to go with it, was likely another layer of difficulty. But what will Abram’s new name be? Abraham – “Father of many nations”. At this moment, Abraham had one son, illegitimately born through his servant Hagar. Abraham was not a father of many nations. But God calls people not as they are, but as they will be. This is why God’s communication to us is so important. Since the beginning, he has created by means of his voice. We need God to show up and call our futures into existence.

And this was God’s purpose with Gideon, who did not believe he was who God said he was. While the Lord was calling him to be a national leader, Gideon was reminding God of his low credentials. And was God put off by this tone? No. He gave Gideon signs of proof. He touched some meat, which was consumed in flames. He made a fleece wet with the surrounding ground dry. Then he made the fleece dry with the surrounding ground wet.

It should never be lost on us how God’s nature of mercy is present in his communication. Abram’s encounter with God for his name change comes after his sinful and unfaithful decision to have a child with his servant. Yet God did not disqualify Abram from receiving the promises. He mercifully spoke a new man into existence. Gideon struggled so much to believe what God was saying, calling for more signs of confirmation. Yet God was patient with Gideon, mercifully leading him into a position of faith.

But watch how God goes even further with his mercy communication. You might think that if Gideon still wavered after all of this, God would give up on him. But no. Even on the eve of battle the Lord showed up to Gideon. Judges 7:9-11:

That night the Lord said, “Get up! Go down into the Midianite camp, for I have given victory to you over them. But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah. Listen to what the Midianites are saying and you will be greatly encouraged. Then you will be eager to attack. So Gideon took Purah and went down to the edge of the enemy camp.

God gave his orders to attack. But also gave another option to help Gideon in case of fear. We might conclude that with everything God had already done for Gideon, he had no right to be fearful. And perhaps that’s true. But even after all these powerful revelations and manifestations, God mercifully provided a revelatory plan for Gideon’s present fear.

In a bizarre turn of events, God led Gideon to eavesdrop on a dream from the enemy camp. The Midianites were in fear, convinced that the meaning of the dream pointed to Gideon’s victory. After hearing this, Gideon worshiped God and declared to his army, “Get up! For the Lord has given you victory!”

Gideon had seen powerful signs pointing to his calling, but at the end of the day, the revelation that set his feet on firm ground was a dream and a correct interpretation. Never underestimate the power of communication from God. The means of message delivery are irrelevant compared to the power of the speaker of the message. And while the means of revelation can be extraordinary, the power of how that revelation can create a change in our hearts is even more amazing. Gideon’s God is your God. Do you view God with this much mercy towards you?

God’s voice is patient for agreement

If we scan the biblical accounts of God speaking to a person, whether through an angel, a prophet, or himself directly, we will see a common purpose of calling a person into agreement with what God is saying and doing. And something fascinates me about God’s character in these moments.

He almost always uses a means to accomplish an end and usually that means is a person. When God can easily cause or prevent something Himself, instead He gives the stewardship of an area over to people. In this way, God is sort of inefficient.

In Numbers 22, we read about a mysterious prophet named Balaam. A man hired this prophet to curse the nation of Israel, in order to protect his own nation. God told Balaam not to curse the nation of Israel. I find this very fascinating! Balaam could have cursed Israel and it would have worked even though God forbid him from doing it. Balaam is a prophet of God who gets his power from God, yet God allows Balaam to steward the power himself. Wouldn’t it have been simpler if God told Balaam that any curse on Israel simply would not work? Should not God have taken greater control of Balaam’s power to curse? Yet He gave Balaam full control and expected him to be wise and obedient as he dispersed the blessings and curses. So this is what I mean by inefficient. The rest of Balaam’s story is a bit of a mess, which could have been prevented if God gave a little less control to people and kept more for himself. But God isn’t always interested in my definition of efficiency.

If you pry into the deepest corners of God’s affections, you will find his longing for relational partnerships with the people he created in his image. I’m sure there are moments when God expects a quicker reaction time from his people than He gets, but he doesn’t sacrifice the partnership with people in order to get quicker results. And so He works with me and through me.

And in order for me to get anything done, I must be in agreement with him. In agreement with what he is saying, in agreement with what he is doing, in agreement with how he wants to accomplish things. And God will wait for this agreement. I have found Him to be extremely patient!

And this is why almost every prophetic word and every angelic intervention in the Bible was for the purpose of a person coming into agreement with God so that something could be accomplished. Instead of God accomplishing on his own, he intervenes to help the person arrive in agreement. Self-identity agreement may be the most foundational aspect in accomplishing anything with God.

So we can see in the cases of Gideon and Abraham that agreement is the expression of belief, and belief activates the explosive power of God in the work he wants to do through us. Conversely, God’s power is often delayed through the disagreeing unbelief of his people. And therefore agreement AND disagreement are both uniquely powerful.

Observe the contrast between God’s communication encounters with Zechariah and Mary, in order to gain their agreement (Luke 1). Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were elderly and without children. They had once prayed for children, but when an angel appeared and announced news of a coming son, Zechariah did not believe it. He was in disagreement with what God was saying through the angel. As a result, the angel took away Zechariah’s voice. This disagreeing voice was a problem, which is why I believe he was made mute – a prophetic picture of the problem getting solved – Zechariah’s voice would no longer disagree. Later on, Zechariah quickly came into agreement and he made a baby with his wife, and then he got his voice back.

Conversely, we read about the angel giving outrageous news to Mary: she would give birth to the long awaited Messiah; and if that weren’t extreme enough, she would be impregnated as a virgin. If ever there was a laughable and unbelievable message, this was it. Yet Mary responded with faith filled words of agreement: “May it be done to me according to your word.”

God speaks his voice to us not simply to transfer information, but rather to invite us into agreement for his purposes in our lives so that his desires can be released into a circumstance. Ask God to reveal if your mindset and language are not aligned with his language, and he might just unexpectedly intervene.

But I am a worm

It will be difficult to come into agreement with what God is saying about you as long as you are holding onto postures of false humility or religious self-deprecation. In some religious cultures you might be deemed disrespectful to God if you approach him with any posture that is not a worm. This approach not only misunderstands self-identity but also God’s identity. This approach sees God as slave master rather than father or friend.

Jesus spoke into this issue, recorded in Matthew 13. After Jesus had traveled to many towns performing miracles and proclaiming the kingdom with much success, he returned to his hometown of Nazareth and spoke in the synagogue. The listeners were deeply offended and refused to believe him, leading Jesus to proclaim to them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” Matthew closes the account with this lament: “And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.”

Why is it that a prophet is not welcome in his or her hometown? Because the hometown residents knew the prophet before they were a prophet. The locals watched Jesus grow up as a pretty normal kid. They knew his parents and saw that he was a carpenter rather than a prophet. They had Jesus boxed into his pre-prophet identity and were predisposed to challenge his words and actions. Of course, before Jesus started his traveling ministry, he was baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon him, changing his calling and assignment. But residents of other towns never knew the pre-prophet Jesus and could therefore believe more easily.

I believe every follower of Jesus is given some sort of calling that goes beyond the capacity of their current identity. We often won’t see the pathway to accomplish what God calls us to, but that is the point of belief. And like God did with Gideon, he calls us a mighty hero. And like Gideon did with God, he traps himself in his pre-calling identity. So often we are the residents of Nazareth rejecting ourselves with unbelief from what God calls us towards.

And like Nazareth, we will get the same result: God won’t do very much because of the unbelief. Yet God is merciful. He is patient. He longs to accomplish his work through us, so much so, that he waits and waits until we hear his voice and agree with what he says. As you read this, what can you hear God say about your identity, that might even sound outrageous? It is very much like God to call you something that you can’t even picture. He waits for you to agree.

The identity I needed to agree on

In June of 2016, while I was a pastor, my friend and I traveled to a Christian conference in order to clear our minds, have some deep conversation, and pursue God’s heart for our lives. In this season of my life I lacked satisfaction and was in the midst of asking God many things about my identity.

On the last evening of the conference my friend and I prayed with another man whom we didn’t know. During the prayer time, the other man was listening to God on my behalf. He told me, “I think God has gifted you in the realm of business.” My friend offered the man correction and told him I was a pastor and not in business. But the man stood firm and doubled down, “I don’t care if he’s a pastor, he has an anointing for business.” I kept quiet in the moment and pondered these words. As I went to bed that night I began to hear God’s voice for myself on the same subject. There was indeed something about business that brought me joy. I actually graduated from university with a degree in business, and went on to teach economics in a high school, a subject that is deeply interesting to me to this day.

Over the next few weeks I listened to God about my anointing, or identity, in business and then wrestled with him just like Gideon. After all, I had never run a business. I had seen no evidence of “anointing” or success with money. But when I scraped away the false humility, I actually began to believe it. And as I read my journals from the previous years, I could see hints of this all along. But what would I do?

In my free time I began to jump back into the books and articles that would be boring to many, but life-giving to me. Principles of investing, economics, and money were ideas that made sense to me. I had no means or vision to start a new business, but I felt like pursuing the knowledge was a good first step to steward what I thought God was saying.

Later that year, in fact it was September 22, I heard God’s voice say to me in the morning, “Darren, when does autumn begin?” That sounded very random to me. But I thought, “I think autumn begins on September 21.” I was unsure of that day’s date, so I looked at the calendar and was somewhat surprised to see this day was the 22nd. And then I did a quick Google search to see precisely when autumn began in California in 2016: September 22 at 7:21 am. This was about two hours before I heard this. God had my attention that morning. I was not thinking about seasons at all, so it seemed no coincidence that I heard this on the morning autumn began in 2016. I spent the morning in prayer and reading the scriptures about seasons. I investigated the Greek word for season (kairos) in verses such as Acts 3:20:

Then times (kairos) of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah.

God was speaking to me about changing seasons in life and changing seasons in anointing, and he did it on the exact morning that the season changed from summer to autumn.

One week later, on September 29, 2016, I heard God’s voice say, “Look at the angel who stirred the waters.” Like the previous word, I had not been thinking about this subject. So I grabbed my Bible and found this unusual story in John 5 about crowds of unwell people who laid around a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda. According to the story, an angel would show up from time to time and stir the waters of the pool and the first person who could manage to get in the stirred waters would be healed. Fascinating, but why did God ask me to look at this?

I read the story again and this time looked up some of the words in Greek. And there it was again: kairos, the Greek word for season. The angel would show up in a kairos moment and stir the water.

There was great mystery in all of this to me, but it was a season of life where God was speaking to me about seasons. He was challenging me to see myself as he saw me. And I wondered if there would be a time, a perfect moment where, like the unwell beside the pool, I would need to react quickly.