Sometimes you can just tell when not to get into a new Christian book, based solely on its summary in the CBD catalog.
Using real-life experiences, [name of author] reveals the attitudes and actions that helped him hear directly from God when facing challenges. You’ll learn how to listen for whispers that determine choices, nudges that rescue us from despair, promptings that spur growth, urgings that come from others, and inspiration that reveals the terrible plight of people around the globe.
By the way, God told me to critique this book I haven’t actually read — He gave me a nudge, you see.
But seriously: does anyplace in Scripture say God wants us to seek His will this way?1 2
- Click for more on God’s Will Hunting. Or see Pyromaniacs contributor Dan Phillips’ firm rebuke to certain other “use the nuuudge Luuuke” advocates in Non Sola Scriptura: the Blackaby view of God’s will, Part 1 and Part 2. ↩
- Also, note this book was not written by someone easily termed “charismatic.” Rather, such ideas as this are oddly prevalent is supposed “cessationist” denominations and Christians who claim they value God’s Word as His final and complete revelation. ↩
Ha! I read that advertisement yesterday, and I read Kevin DeYoung’s “Just Do Something” just two days before that. It was obviously the will of God that I should do those things–He just didn’t tell me that beforehand.
I bet the terrorists heard whispers from Allah telling them to blow up the World Trade Center, too…
And yesterday I heard a whisper that I should get french fries.
Huh.
Well, I heard a whisper that all this “listen to God’s whisper” teaching was bosh and bilgewater.
As Dan Phillips said at the end of his Blackabys’ view review, part 2: