How to have a back and forth conversation with God — without having to be sinless first.

Yes, you can hear God talk to you in whole sentences about whatever you ask.

This might seem a bit silly, but I get embarrassed when people ask me about how to have a conversation with God.

I know, I know, I wrote the book, right? But look, telling people how to have a back and forth conversation with God… it makes me feel like a religious freak, and, hey, after a lifetime of being involved in Christian circles where I… and not just me, but others too, we’ve done so much damage to people because we were so religious.

The truth is we pushed so many people away from God – you know what I mean, maybe you even did it yourself, we labelled people, we called them ‘non-Christians’, ‘back-slidden’, ‘fallen away’, taught them that God was unhappy with them, a nasty judging father, and we treated them as lesser than ourselves somehow.

Something, by the way, that Jesus never did. The Pharisees were masters at it, but not him, he just didn’t seem to have it in him. In the end it got him killed, he was just too accepting of bad buggers like you and me.

Anyway, after a lifetime of acting like a wannabe Pharisee, I’m trying to come to my senses and the thought of being associated with religious zealous Christianity makes my skin crawl. And yet here I am, the guy who wrote the book about a back and forth conversation with God, and people ask me how to do it.

Lately more and more people are asking me that, so here’s something that might help. See what you think. If you’d like to know how to do it this might just be what the doctor ordered.

It’s an ‘interview’ I once published and for some reason it really seemed to help people learn how to talk back and forth with God, I mean to really hear him. Thousands and thousands of people actually, they raved about it! Anyway, maybe it will help you too. Have a read and see what you think.

It seemed crazy at the time, it’s an interview, God interviewing me if you can believe it. He asked me what I’d learned about how to have a conversation with him. I published this interview in my first book, The Freedom Diaries. I figured people would think I was crazy, and yet, as I say, it helped thousands and thousands of people.

So, here’s that conversation, that ‘interview’ with God, him interviewing me. Hey, burn me at the stake, ban my books from your store, but thousands of people can hear God in this. Maybe you will too. Here goes nothing… 😊

INTERVIEW WITH GOD

Mark I want to ask you some questions. Your answers will help people understand how to have a conversation with me. You know they are easily able to hear me speak so clearly in their minds that they’ll understand exactly what I’m saying.

I want you to give them pointers so they can try this themselves.

Ok.

So first explain how you started doing this.

Because of my situation (my wife had left me) I had already been writing down all the things I thought you were saying but not in actual conversation. Then I went to a camp where they asked me to read a bible verse and then write down my thoughts. Then write a list of questions to you about the verse. That all seemed ok, (a bit boring to be honest), but then they asked me to write down your answers!

How did you feel about that?

I thought they were mad. It seemed like conjuring up your voice rather than waiting for it. But I decided to give it a go because a friend I respected had urged me to go to this camp. But I didn’t think it would work.

Then what happened?

Well I got out my pen, and in disbelief that I was silly enough to try something like this, I began to write.

And?

Your answers came thick and fast. I could hardly believe it. Here I was writing your words. And I could tell it was you.

But you wanted to believe it wasn’t me. So how could you be so sure?

For that very reason. I wanted to prove the idea stupid, so when I could see that the words I wrote came from you I was blown away. 

Did I move the pen?

No nothing like that. I’ve got control of the pen.

So how did it actually work?

I’d write a question to you. I think the first one was something like ‘God are you saying in this verse in Philippians 3 that my Christianity is not enough, that I need to push further? That in this verse, Paul was saying, like Bono sings, that he still hadn’t found what he was looking for?’

And then what happened?

I wrote your answer, I wrote it without waiting for it to come, just started writing expecting the words to come, and I could tell as I wrote that the words were coming from you. The act of writing seemed to be an act of faith.

It seemed unbelievable and yet I knew it was you. I’d start the sentence with some words to get my mind moving and receptive to what you were saying. Maybe my name, or the obvious beginning of a sentence. Something like ‘What I am saying Mark is…’

Ok? Then what?

So, I’d start writing and your answer might come something like this; ‘What I am saying Mark is yes. Your heart cries out for more because there is more. You’re just touching the surface. You’re right to be frustrated with normal Christianity. I want you frustrated.’

I started writing to prove this wouldn’t work, but as I wrote I discovered it did. It was so obvious that itwas you. I wanted to doubt, but I couldn’t.

Something happened in your mind and heart when you saw that this was true?

Yes! Something exploded in my mind. I thought if I can hear this clearly from God about a bible verse, I wonder if he’ll answer any question this clearly? I had heaps of questions about my life, my family and business, and the thought that I could get them answered this clearly was incredible.

So, what did you do?

I asked you a whole bunch of questions, about stuff I was worried about.

And what happened?

Two things. You answered, oh man did you answer! It was fantastic!! But the other thing that happened wasn’t so fantastic. I asked the people who ran the camp if I was getting it right. Do these sound like the answers of God? They said I must leave those sorts of questions about my personal life in God’s hands. They told me to seek first the kingdom of God, the inference being that stuff about my personal life isn’t the kingdom of God.

And?

Well, I thought something seemed a bit off. We can’t box you like that. I wondered if Religion had stepped in without those people realizing. Religion suggests that when things are dear to us, family, health etc, that you’re not pleased, and to get your approval we need to focus on ‘spiritual’ things.

So, what did you do?

Well; you’d already answered a whole bunch of personal questions so I decided not to argue, but just to keep asking you questions about everything anyway. I was so excited. A conversation with God. What could be better!

You wanted to talk about stuff that was important to me! Not boring ‘holy stuff’. The more you spoke, the more I realised that you do speak about everything we want to know.

So, the people at the camp were right about their basic ‘writing it down’ approach?

Absolutely. So right! They had discovered this idea that God will converse with us whatever we’re like. They opened up to me the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. That you want to converse all the time, all day long, about every little thing, right down to whether to buy the expensive salt or the cheaper one at the supermarket.

Ok. So, what was the next development?

I started writing questions to you, about everything. All day long. So much in my life was going terribly wrong. You’d made me some amazing promises about family and business, but none of them seemed to be coming true.

And what was the outcome?

I started getting answers about everything.

How did you know it was me?

I could just tell. You sort of can. A friend of mine who has started to converse with you too describes it as a feeling of ‘satisfaction’. You just know when it’s God. The odd time when it wasn’t, I could quickly sense that.

Explain?

It might seem you’d said something really encouraging. It might sound like you were confirming a promise you’d made some other time. So, I’d enthusiastically write it down, but the moment the words hit the page it wouldn’t seem right. That really confused me.

So?

So, I’d ask you again. And it might still seem you were saying that, but it would still seem wrong. So, I’d ask again. And eventually, as I wrote the words I would know this time whether or not it was you. Yes or no, I’d know.

What did you learn from that?

Two things again. The first was I began to realise what you meant when you said to ‘ask and keep on asking’. And the second is that the enemy will try to sound like you to put me off track.

Why would he want to do that?

Subterfuge. This is war. He tried the same thing on you, he quoted verses to you. If he can use a truth to get me listening to his voice, and make me think his voice is yours, then he can begin to take me down the wrong track.

So sometimes you’d end up asking me the same question again, and again, before you broke through and heard the right answer? And you always seemed to know when you needed to do that?

Yes. I’d be terribly frustrated thinking ‘well how can anyone possibly hear from God with this confusion?’ And yet if I kept at it, I’d always end up knowing what you’d said.

People who don’t like this idea of a conversation with you say that if there’s confusion it can’t be fromGod. That threw me at first but then I realised they were just as confused as anyone else. And I remembered the angel who came to Daniel. He’d had to battle a demon for three weeks before Daniel could hear your answer.

I realised that hearing you speak into my mind is going to be a battle. But what a fantastic thing to battle for!

Then you moved to speaking my answers out loud too. How did that happen?

I was writing questions to you and then writing your answers. It was happening all day long and Irealised it was getting impractical to always have to talk to you in writing. I like the writing because it helps me think out exactly what you’re saying, but when I’m riding my motorbike it means stopping to write.

I might be flying down the road on my bike, having a full-blown conversation with you. It was silly, I was riding and stopping all the time. Crazy! I asked you and you seemed to say it would be ok, instead of writing, to speak my questions to you and then speak your answers back.

I could see this was a sort of self-prophecy. Something a good friend of mine confirmed. You’d been talking to him too about what he called ‘self-prophecy’.

This is so embarrassing now, it just sounds so silly and religious, but back then I would speak out my question to you, and then lay a hand on my own head and prophesy back your answer.

But it worked?

Well yes. But I realised later putting my hand on my head was, well, a bit silly and totally unnecessary :). But even so, I could tell it was you. I was a bit nervous about it at first, but I could tell it was you because it felt exactly the same as when I ever speak some sort of prophecy to someone else.

It was the same God talking. It was you. But this time it was a prophecy to myself. Kind of weird. But obviously true.

But then you got less religious?

Yes eventually I could hear you say relax, forget the hand thing, just speak what I tell you.

And do you have to double check my answers when you speak them out loud?

Often, yes. Often I’m not sure if I’ve heard you or not, so I come back repeatedly until the answer is clear. When it’s clear I can suddenly sense that in my spirit.

I told you something which has really helped. What was that?

That this is a conversation between the infinite God, (you), and a finite human, (me). And you want me to be me and you to be you in that conversation. So, I have to be relaxed about the fact that I’m human. Relaxed that the things I want to ask you are human things and not churchy, missionary, religious,‘Godish’ sorts of things.

I need to be relaxed that I want to ask you about my wife, my kids, my business, my supermarket shopping etc. You told me to leave you to be God and enjoy that I’m human because that’s the way you love me to be. If you didn’t, you’d have created me as something else.