Discerning God's Voice

Although there are exceptions, usually when God requires something of you, it will clash with what you consider to be the natural, reasonable course of action. Jesus said that if a fellow strikes you on one cheek, you should turn the other (see Matt. 5:39). Now that's not reasonable. He also said that if someone wants you to go one mile, you should cheerfully go two miles. That's not reasonable either.

The prophet Isaiah put it this way:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways my ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" [Isa. 55:8]

Jesus usually did the opposite of what people expected. If we feel the tug of the world and what we hear from God seems reasonable and rational, then we should check it out. That's not to say that God doesn't utilize human wisdom. He does. But on many occasions God's Voice will ask us to accomplish something that seems quite illogical to our rational minds.

--From How to Listen to God, pg. 52