Is It Ok To Try Hearing God By Opening The Bible Randomly?
Question : Is it ok to try hearing what God is saying, by randomly opening the Bible and reading the first verse that you see?
Answer: I have grown up in a denomination where in our Sunday school days, they used to encourage us saying that God will speak to us in this way mainly. So we used to pray and open the Bible to see what the will of God is. We also used to depend our entire salvation experience based on the verse we get randomly on the first time we open it. If we do not get a good verse, we will again pray for a period of time and then open the Bible again like in the same way we had done previously. We used to do these things until we get a salvation verse which will assure us that we are saved. Such a habit later made us to pray and randomly open the Bible until we would get the verse we want. This has mislead and misguided us in to confusion and fleshly fulfillment too.
For example, say you want to marry a girl whose name is grace. Then you are praying for a while and are opening the Bible to find the verse, "...My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). You can wrongly conclude this as God's will both for yes and a no. If yes you can take this verse as God saying, "My [daughter] grace is sufficient for you" or else if you are already having a no in your mind, you can take like "God's grace is sufficient for you" and that you do not have God's will to marry this grace.
In the same way if you’re eager to do a particular thing already, you may open the Bible at random to find some confirmatory verse and say that the will of God if a clear yes for you. And if you don’t find it, the chances are that you will keep opening the Bible until you find the verse that says yes to what you want to do! That’s how you can deceive yourself in to destruction and fleshly indulgence.
There is a story of a man who was trying to find God’s will in this way, who opened the Bible at random and read, "He went away and hanged himself" (Matt.27:5)! He opened the Bible again and found, "Go and do the same" (Lk.10:37)! He opened the Bible a third time and read, "What you do, do quickly" (Jn.13:27)! That cured him forever of trying to find the will of God in this way!
Yet at certain times God may give a verse and quicken it in our spirit-man exactly according to our exact need in order to encourage us when we have opened our Bible randomly without any previous intention within us to see such a verse. So this is quite ok when we need encouragement from God, but when we want guidance from Him, this may not be a good method to find the will of God.
So primarily it is good to find the will of God through our circumstances, counsel of godly mature elders and spiritual leaders, fellowshipping with our fellow believers, by receiving and expecting a prophetic word from two or three different people, expecting God to reveal it through dreams and visions, reading the word of God to let God quicken His word within us and also pray to God to receive the peace of God within to know that we are in the will of God.
Thanks and Blessings....
Answer: I have grown up in a denomination where in our Sunday school days, they used to encourage us saying that God will speak to us in this way mainly. So we used to pray and open the Bible to see what the will of God is. We also used to depend our entire salvation experience based on the verse we get randomly on the first time we open it. If we do not get a good verse, we will again pray for a period of time and then open the Bible again like in the same way we had done previously. We used to do these things until we get a salvation verse which will assure us that we are saved. Such a habit later made us to pray and randomly open the Bible until we would get the verse we want. This has mislead and misguided us in to confusion and fleshly fulfillment too.
For example, say you want to marry a girl whose name is grace. Then you are praying for a while and are opening the Bible to find the verse, "...My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). You can wrongly conclude this as God's will both for yes and a no. If yes you can take this verse as God saying, "My [daughter] grace is sufficient for you" or else if you are already having a no in your mind, you can take like "God's grace is sufficient for you" and that you do not have God's will to marry this grace.
In the same way if you’re eager to do a particular thing already, you may open the Bible at random to find some confirmatory verse and say that the will of God if a clear yes for you. And if you don’t find it, the chances are that you will keep opening the Bible until you find the verse that says yes to what you want to do! That’s how you can deceive yourself in to destruction and fleshly indulgence.
There is a story of a man who was trying to find God’s will in this way, who opened the Bible at random and read, "He went away and hanged himself" (Matt.27:5)! He opened the Bible again and found, "Go and do the same" (Lk.10:37)! He opened the Bible a third time and read, "What you do, do quickly" (Jn.13:27)! That cured him forever of trying to find the will of God in this way!
Yet at certain times God may give a verse and quicken it in our spirit-man exactly according to our exact need in order to encourage us when we have opened our Bible randomly without any previous intention within us to see such a verse. So this is quite ok when we need encouragement from God, but when we want guidance from Him, this may not be a good method to find the will of God.
So primarily it is good to find the will of God through our circumstances, counsel of godly mature elders and spiritual leaders, fellowshipping with our fellow believers, by receiving and expecting a prophetic word from two or three different people, expecting God to reveal it through dreams and visions, reading the word of God to let God quicken His word within us and also pray to God to receive the peace of God within to know that we are in the will of God.
Thanks and Blessings....
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