“If you don’t listen to God, there are consequences.”

In last week’s prayer article, “Signs it’s God’s voice,” I brought up a pastor who wrote a list of ways we can tell God is talking to us. I took issue with them because they imply we can determine it’s God without properly confirming it. With confirmation they can be useful, but without confirmation they’re just ways we psyche ourselves into thinking it’s God when it may not be. At all.

There were two other items in his list which I didn’t yet bring up. That’s because they’re not really “signs it’s God’s voice”—they’re warnings. He wanted his readers to know if we don’t listen to God, there will be consequences.

And no, he wasn’t talking about natural consequences—that when God’s warns us away from something, but we’re not listening and go there anyway, bad stuff will happen, and God was trying to prevent that. Or when God tells us of an opportunity, but we’re not listening and miss it, and that’s wasted potential.

Nope; really he was talking about curses. If we don’t listen to God, he will punish us. He didn’t phrase it that way, and probably never would. But that’s exactly what he meant: God will hurt us if we won’t listen.

It’s a messed-up way of thinking, but he’s not the only pastor I’ve heard this from. Lots of Christians imagine God as a harsh Father, not a benevolent Father. A father who’s more like the harsh parents they grew up with, and they’re projecting that upon him instead of studying what Jesus has to say about him. So when they read the Old Testament passages about consequences for the Hebrews’ sins, they imagine God’s actively smiting them, instead of passively stepping back and letting nature and their enemies have at ’em. They proclaim, not a God who corrects his children, but a God who beats them and calls it “discipline.” Jesus teaches no such thing, so let’s be rid of this false idea.

God doesn’t need to add to the consequences of not listening to him. It’s gonna harm us aplenty when we don’t! I already mentioned missed opportunities, and you have no idea how many opportunities present themselves in our lives. And God knows about all of them. And so can we, if we’re listening and are obedient. And we’ll miss nearly all of them when we aren’t.

That alone should get us to pay attention. You know those Christians who appear to have tons of good luck, good fortune, and blessings coming their way? True, some of them are exaggerating, and some of them are big fat liars. But some of them are totally telling the truth: They’ll do anything God tells them, and they’re listening for it. So God’s pointing them towards every opportunity around them. He knows they’ll make the most of it, and bless him, and help him grow his kingdom. You can do that too, y’know.

“If you don’t respond, God’ll stop talking.”

The threat this pastor makes, is that if we won’t listen to God, or won’t respond to the stuff we know God’s telling us, God will figure, “Well there’s no point in talking to them,” and just stop talking.

On what basis does he make this claim? Well he’s thinking of certain sinful leaders in the Old Testament. The head priest Eli, who let his sons rob and rape worshipers, 1Sa 2.12-17, 22 so apparently God had to send him prophets because Eli wasn’t listening. Or Saul ben Kish, who defied God so many times God didn’t even bother to speak to Saul through prophets. 1Sa 28.6

True, when we’re not personally listening to God, he has to resort to other ways of getting our attention. (And no, not disasters. Disasters happen to everyone, and aren’t by default “acts of God,” no matter what insurance companies claim.) He’ll have to send prophets, or freaky dreams, or even make an appearance. If we absolutely have to listen to him, he’ll make sure we do. Whether we heed him is another thing.

But this idea that God quits trying when we quit listening? It’s not biblical. The whole point of Jesus appearing to Paul of Tarsus was because Paul wasn’t listening—and Jesus needed him to. I like the way the First Nations Version puts it:

Acts 26.13-14 FNV

13“Then at midday, O honored chief, I saw a light from the spirit-world above shining down on me and my fellow travelers. 14We all had fallen to the ground when I heard a voice speaking to me in our tribal language.

“ ‘Man Who Questions, Man Who Questions,’ the voice called my name twice, and asked, ‘why are you pursuing and mistreating me? It is a hard and painful thing to fight against me, like a horse pushing back against the spurs.’ ”

Paul was only destroying himself by fighting Jesus, and Jesus had to stop him before he went further. And if we’re doing likewise, God likewise intervenes. He doesn’t give up on us. We do that.

God doesn’t stop warning, stop challenging, stop correcting, stop instructing, nor stop loving. God is patient and kind, wants us to listen, and isn’t gonna make it harder to listen when we finally snap out of our apathy and start trying. He’s right there. Same as he’s always been.

So if you haven’t been listening to God lately, you have no reason to be discouraged from starting it up again. God’s eager for you to get right back into it. Or eager for you to get started. Either way, he’s like the father of the prodigal son: Welcome back! He has so much to tell you.