Spiritual And Emotional Growth
We are God's children, and one interesting thing about children is that they start immature and they grow up. Our walk with God is not much different. We start out spiritually immature and need to grow up in Him (Eph. 4:12-14). And most of us, for whatever reason, also start our walk with God with some areas of emotional immaturity. This isn't a complete surprise, since psychologists tell us many kids grow up in some type of dysfunctional home. So it's not surprising we have areas of emotional wounding.
God wants to grow us up spiritually and emotionally. He wants us to be strong and mature in Him (Phil. 3:14-15). He wants us to understand good from evil and right from wrong (Heb. 5:13-14). He wants us to live victorious and overcoming lives in Him. And God will often deal with anything that stands in the way of this with us in prayer, so we will grow to maturity in Him.
Prayer about our growth and maturity may include practical things such as prayerful study (Bible or textbooks). Or it may go deeply personal, such as God examining our hearts, repentance prayer (as we become aware of things in our hearts or if we fall in some type of sin). It may include God-issued invitations to make a deeper commitment to His Lordship in some area of your life. Sometimes God will take you through some painful refiner's fire as He works on character development. Or He may do some inner healing by bringing you back to situations where you were hurt and then bring healing into them. Or He may touch on some areas where you're under enemy oppression or bondage and set you free from it. All of these things fall under the category of growth and maturity prayer.
We will spend the next three lessons looking at some aspects of growth and maturity prayer in more detail.
Self-Judging/Self-Evaluation Prayer
The Bible is full of verses about God examining our hearts. There are also a lot of verses where saints invite God to examine their hearts because they wanted to have a pure heart before Him, such as Ps. 26:2: "Test me, O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind." We are encouraged to prayerfully examine our hearts before the Lord. 2 Cor. 13:5 invites us to "examine yourselves." 1 Cor. 11:31 says, "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."
In other words, God wants us to examine our hearts for those areas that don't line with His character and principles, bring them to the Lord and prayerfully deal with it before God. If we are proactive in working with God on those areas of our life, then He won't initiate judgment in those areas (1 Cor. 11:31). Verse 32 continues, "But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." In other words, if we do not take the initiative to work with God on our faults, then God will come along and discipline us to work on them anyhow. It really is a lot better to prayerfully examine your heart with God and allow Him to finger the area that He wants to correct and transform. If we cooperate with God, this process usually goes faster and is less painful.
One time I decided to pray some of those verses asking Jesus to examine and point out the areas that He wanted to work on. I remember asking the Lord to "judge me now" so that I could correct some of the problems before the final evaluation each believer will face before God. This is sort of like taking a practice test so we can tell what areas of weakness are present and work with Him on correcting them. God likes to do this sort of thing with His children. He wants to help us take a realistic look at areas that need His transformation and then to work with us in those areas.
Repentance Prayer
Repentance prayer is precisely what it sounds like, repenting before God because of a present or past sin and asking His forgiveness, plus making a choice to change that sinful behavior and asking Him to transform us in that area.
However, there are dimensions of repentance that you may not be aware of. The first and most obvious is that we need to receive His forgiveness after we repent. Many people get the first half of repentance right; they are sorry for their sins and make a commitment to change their behavior. But sometimes people act like the blood of Jesus is for everyone else but them. Some feel they need to punish themselves for sinning by imposing a separation from God, as though they don't deserve to draw near to Him. God wants to draw close to them, but they push away from God because they still feel unclean from their earlier sin. They give mental assent to the power of Jesus' death and resurrection to forgive sin, but they don't believe deep down that it applies in their specific case.
(Please note, I'm not talking about people who deliberately and intentionally choose to sin for their own pleasures. I'm talking about those who have accepted Jesus and choose to submit to His Lordship, but who sometimes fall into an area of sin they are sincerely sorry for.)
Also, there may be times when God brings us into a season of repentance. This isn't dealing with present sins, but where God "digs up" past sins and mindsets. He makes us aware of them and invites us to deal with them before Him. It's sort of like a minefield from war. (Enemy soldiers bury explosives underground on main paths so that when one of your troops step on them, they get blown up.) We have these things (undealt with past sins) buried "underground," so we can't see them and we are not mindful of them. But if God leaves them in place, we will eventually "step on one" and be hurt by it. So God wants to dig up the booby traps, e.g., expose and deal with past sins, so they are removed and have no more potential to harm us. It's not uncommon for God to take a believer through a season of repentance for past sins. These seasons of repentance may last from a few weeks to months, depending on what's in your past.
In my case, I had been a believer since I was 14, but I didn't make a serious commitment to Christ's Lordship in my life until 17 or 18 years later. He brought me into a season of repentance shortly after I made that commitment to Jesus' Lordship. My season lasted about three monthes. It seemed that over and over again, when I would go before the Lord for prayer, another sin of the past would come up. I felt small and dirty for a long time as I worked through this with God. But those things stopped having any power over my life as I dealt with them in His presence. I'd cry and repent and then plead with God to change me so I wouldn't have the nature or desire to do that type of thing again. Sometimes I'd wrestle with a sin of the past for just a few hours, sometimes for a few days. But by the time God finished dealing with a past sin, I usually had no desire toward that type of sin again. And I knew I was cleansed and forgiven from it.
I remember one time during that season when I thought I'd finally worked through it all. I had a day of incredible fellowship and intimacy with God during my prayer time. I don't think I'd ever been that close to Him. Then the next day, God brought up the "big one" - a sin I'd once done as a teen and had forgotten about for years. I was horrified when this came up and remembered what I'd done. This one seemed worse than all of the other ones put together. I felt I must be totally repugnant to God and decided there was no way He could possibly love me because I'd done that. I felt so dirty and horrible as I remembered what I'd done years before.
Suddenly, God spoke to me. He said, "Teresa, do you remember yesterday when you felt My presence so strongly and we were so close?" I said, "Yes, Lord." That had been my most wonderful intimacy experience with God in my entire life. Then God asked, "Did you feel loved then?" I replied, "Yes." Then He said something I will never forget. "Teresa, don't you think I knew about that sin yesterday when I was loving on you? You weren't aware of it, but I was. I knew about it then, and I loved you anyway. Now that you are aware of it, you are horrified and you push away from Me. Come to Me and receive My forgiveness and be restored."
Prayer About Freedom From Oppression and Bondage
Sometimes the enemy will have a stronghold over an area of a believer's life. This can manifest as a besetting sin, or as a fear or something that causes a person to behave in an inappropriate way.
A besetting sin is when you don't want to sin in a certain way, but you fall into it over and over again. That sin seems to have power over you and you are unable to resist it. After you fall into the sin, you are truly repentant and very sorry. You promise yourself that next time you won't submit to the temptation. But when next time happens, you find yourself powerless to resist. You want to be free from it, but you are unable to do so. This is usually a symptom of a demonic stronghold over you in this area. If that is the case, then the demonic bondage must be broken before the person can get free of the besetting sin. Most of the time, people in this situation should get ministry from another believer who knows how to do authority prayer. But sometimes God will work on this privately with a person in their personal prayer time.
Fears and emotional struggles are another area where the enemy can bring bondage and oppression into a believer's life. This can include things like irrational fears, deep emotional pain or depression arising from very minor things, etc. The enemy comes along to torment the person in their thinking and emotions. Often a person under enemy oppression or bondage will find themselves reacting to certain things in ways that scare or surprise them. A person may go into a fit rage because someone isn't fast enough in helping them. Or maybe they fall into days of depression because a friend didn't say hi to them at church one Sunday. In other words, seemingly mild events can trigger inappropriate and intense responses.
The person who experiences this will feel like their emotions are out of their control in one or more areas. They will tell themselves, "I won't let it get to me next time," but it does. Sometimes these are merely symptoms of past unhealed emotional trauma and require inner healing type of prayer and ministry. But sometimes a demon will attach to the situation. When there's enemy attachment empowering the situation, the person usually needs ministry from another believer who knows how to take authority over the enemy. Most people don't deal with severe enemy oppression and bondage totally on their own. But there will be times when you are in personal prayer and God shows you an area under enemy oppression. God may cause faith to rise up in you and He may tell you to take authority, in Jesus' name, over that thing and break its power over you.
This can happen totally out of the blue, where you didn't realize there was a problem until you find God telling you to take authority over it. Or it can happen if you and the Lord have been working on an area of your life over a prolonged period. (Sometimes people who are going through seasons of inner healing or deliverance ministry will have this happen in their private prayer time.)
There are times when God wants to use your prayer time to set you free from an area of enemy oppression or bondage in your life.
Prayer Regarding Inner Healing and Refiner's Fire
Lessons 5 to 7 cover various dimensions of our prayer life that enable us to grow emotionally and spiritually, to come to maturity in God. Lesson 5 talked about self-evaluation, repentance and freedom from enemy oppression/bondages. This lesson will look at deep heart issues and the next lesson will cover two aspects of spiritual growth.
Inner Healing Prayer
Inner healing prayer is where God meets you in a place where there's some deep emotional pain or trauma and brings His healing to it. Sometimes God will allow painful memories to come up vividly during your prayer time. At first you may think you're being distracted, but it might actually be God's hand. He might want to heal you of the pain and trauma from that past event. You may begin to relive that experience, to feel some of the feelings you felt when it happened. Then, while you are in the midst of it, He will come into that situation with His presence or His love. When God brings His healing to a past situation, it's like being in a dark room and suddenly someone turns on the light. The darkness is gone, vanished. And when God brings His healing into an area of our past, He takes the pain and hurt out of them. We still have that experience in our past, but it no longer has undue power over us.
There are many excellent books written on inner healing ministry. God can and does minister healing through others. However, He will often work with us when we are on our own as well. God loves to bring His healing into our lives.
Sometimes He will take us back to a painful experience in our lives and then take the hurt/pain out of that experience.
Other times He will make us aware of a wrong thinking pattern and shed His light into it. For instance, I used to have a terrible fear of being deceived by the enemy. Any time God would tell me anything, I would spend a lot of time confirming and reconfirming that He really said that. As a result, I was very slow responding to His direction because I was so afraid I would hear Him wrong. One day, God challenged me on that issue. He said, "Teresa, you don't trust Me." I said, "Of course, I trust You, Lord," because I knew (head knowledge) that He is trustworthy. Then I realized that deep down, I didn't really believe what my mind told me. As a child, people frequently told me things to get my hopes up and then dashed them to the ground by not doing what they promised. I had learned not to trust people. And what I learned had entered into my unconscious (or deep-down) thinking in my interactions with God. It was like a light switch was thrown in me. Suddenly I understood (consciously and deep within my heart/emotions) that I was predisposed to distrust people, and that somehow carried over into my relationship with God. I also know that "God was not a man that He should lie" (Numbers 23:19). As soon as God exposed that wrong thinking pattern, something inside of me clicked and I was suddenly able to trust Him. My fear of being deceived literally vanished.
God has an amazing variety of ways He will work with people in inner healing prayer. But in each of His approaches, He deals with a fear or behavior or mindset that interferes with your Christian walk (or interfers with your relationship with others), and He brings His healing into it. Whatever used to have such power over you no longer does. Sometimes the healing is instant and other times He does it over a period of time. Inner healing is when God makes you whole in a certain area.
Refiner's Fire Prayer
Have you heard how they refine gold? They heat it until it melts. Once it melts, gold, which is a heavier metal, sinks to the bottom and the impurities (e.g., other materials) float to the top. They skim those other materials off and let the gold cool. The higher the grade of gold, the more times they do that. E.g., 24K gold is heated and refined more times than 14K gold, which is heated and refined more times than 10K gold.
God sometimes uses a similar process when He wants to refine His children. He will allow things (hardship, adversity, unfair situations, personal conflicts, etc) into our life that serve as a fire to heat us up. The impurities begin rising to the top, because we act different under stress than we do when all is going well. Our faults and weaknesses rise to the top and are exposed. This is where God wants us to acknowledge these problem areas and invite Him to transform us. (That is allegorical to skimming the impurities off the top of the gold.)
God honors our freewill, and He often won't force us to deal with what He has exposed and submit to Him (against our will) for transformation. But if we don't deal with it (e.g., work with Him to be transformed in that area), then He'll begin exposing it over and over again and "turning up the heat" to get us motivated to deal with the issue He wants to deal with. In other words, the more you resist, the longer you will stay in the refiner's fire.
Sometimes people mistake God's refining fire as an attack of the enemy. They will begin resisting the devil instead of recognizing that God is using difficult circumstances to expose problematic areas of our nature and/or character that need to be changed. There are times when the devil attacks us and we need to resist. But there are also times when God refines us and we need to cooperate with Him.
At some point, God takes each of us through a major breaking point or He pushes us to our limits in some area. When He does, we will be horrified by the things we see in ourselves.
This pours into our prayer life as we learn to deal with the refinement in the way God desires. It typically involves crying out to God for help, feeling extreme distress over the situation, feeling horrified at some of what we see rising up in ourselves. And sometimes it even involves questioning God's goodness and faithfulness to us (e.g., asking questions like, "How could you let this happen to me, God?" or "Why aren't you helping me, God?") God puts us in a place where we have to look at the areas of weakness and deal with them. And we may also have to deal with our faith in God, because that also becomes challenged in the process. We have to make a conscious decision to trust God and we also have to make conscious decisions to think or act properly in these dire circumstances. During these times, our prayer life will center around discussing these issues with God. It will usually take some sort of inner struggle before we can submit to His will in these areas and allow Him to transform the things in us that are dysfunctional.
Let me share an example from my own life. My "big" refiner's fire came in the form of being falsely accused and mistreated and having my rights seriously violated by the pastor at a church I attended. The specific details aren't important. What was important was that I cried out to God to vindicate me, and all He would say was to trust Him and not defend myself against the false accusations. But the hard part was that God didn't seem to defend me either. I went through a lot of very ungodly emotions, such as anger and unforgiveness and truly wishing harm to those who were hurting me. My faith also got shaken because God didn't appear to come through for me. And at one point I remember thinking, "The world treats its own much better than the church does. Why am I putting up with all of this abuse? Maybe I should just go back to the world and drop out of church."
I was pushed to my limits. For a while, I even toyed with walking away from my relationship with God, but (thank God) I could never bring myself to do that! It took a while before I could pray sensibly (or before I even wanted to). I had trouble sleeping at night and I'd replay things over and over in my mind thinking of ways I could have defended myself from the false accusations or of things I should have done in response to being so mistreated.
One day God spoke to me and told me, "You know that eventually you are going to have to come to Me on this on My terms." Yes, I knew that, but it was a struggle for me. I knew that God's terms would require genuine forgiveness and letting it go without vindicating myself. I knew that some of what had risen up in me in response to how I was treated was ugly and ungodly. And I knew I'd have to repent and even change the way I thought and acted.
I wish I could say the process of working this out with God was instant, but it took me many months. God met me in prayer and we worked through this together. He helped me to forgive, He restored my trust in Him and He helped me have godly attitudes and actions. But it took months. I had to face a lot of problem areas inside of me I didn't want to admit were there. I had to acknowledge them and then turn to God for help in them, so He could transform me. Sometimes there were steps I had to take with God in the process, e.g., things He asked me to do. Other times all that was required was simply turning them over to God, but it took an act of great will to give them to Him.
The Lord showed me a picture during that process: A child's fist was tightly clenching a rock. I was hanging on to things like the child was clenching the rock. God said I had a choice. I could either open my fist and put the rock in His hand, or He would gently but firmly pry the fingers back one by one until I could not hold onto that rock anymore. Some of what He dealt with was simply too hard for me to open my fingers and give Him the rock. I remember praying about one of them, "Lord, I want to give this to you, but I just can't seem to open my hand. Would You please pry my fingers back and take it away?"
The prayer birthed out of the refiner's fire is deep and soul searching and it often touches on some very painful and sensitive areas, things that we wouldn't have been willing to deal with if God hadn't put us into those difficult circumstances. But when you come out the other side and see the transformation in your life and nature, you will actually be glad the Lord took you through that painful fire.
Just to finish my story, the Lord left me in that abusive church for a long time, teaching me to trust Him instead of protecting myself. He required me to remain submissive and act in a Godly fashion (my actions and my attitudes). After a year or so, He vindicated me. It became known that the charges against me were false and my true character/nature were recognized. Some time after that, He released me to go to another church.
That was truly the most difficult experience I have ever had to go through in my entire life. But much of my character, faith and strength were molded in it. And when I came out the other side, God gave me an increased anointing and deeper intimacy with Him. I was free from some inner issues that used to beset and oppress me. I didn't enjoy that "fire" experience at all, and I hope I don't have to go through another one that difficult. But I do see that it was a good thing and I like the changes God worked in me through that process.
One good thing about being pushed to our limit is that God doesn't do that very often. For most of us, that depth and intensity of the refiner's fire will be a one-time experience. He will probably push each of us to our limits at one point or another in our life, to work on those things that can be exposed and removed only by dire circumstances. But God's goal isn't to torture us, but to make us shine like pure gold. He's not going to leave us there; He's going to take us through it and out the other side into victory and anointing.
We get the "really big fire" only once or maybe twice. But He will take us in and out of the smaller refiner's fire as He needs to work on our character. I don't think we are ever fully "done" - we will need to continue to be transformed until we go to be with Jesus. The more we cooperate with Him, the faster we'll get out of the fire.
Spiritual Growth/Maturity Prayer
Lessons five to seven cover various dimensions of our prayer life that enable us to grow emotionally and spiritually, to come to maturity in God. Lesson five talked about self-evaluation, repentance and freedom from enemy oppression/bondages. Lesson six looked at growth and maturity in deep heart issues (e.g., inner healing prayer and refiner's fire prayer). This lesson will look at two other aspects of growth/maturity prayer: commitment prayer and prayerful study.
Commitment Prayer
This falls into three categories. One is where God is asking you to make a short-term but significant commitment to Him. It may be that He calls you to a 40-day fast, and you need to be sure it is really Him before you start this fast. Or it may be that He is asking you to make a large donation to a ministry, an amount that will make a noticeable dent in your pocket book. Or maybe He is asking you to take a few weeks off work to go on a short-term missions trip to Afghanistan or India or some other potentially dangerous place. These are examples of things where God is asking for a large commitment toward a specific task or event. You need to spend time hearing from God and confirming that He has really asked you to do this, and possibly to get directions from Him for the specifics of carrying out the task.
I remember one time when I was having health problems. I had been to two regular doctors and a specialist and had some tests run and they determined it was a digestive problem. I had been sick for months. I was still able to go to work and church, but I was not able to do much else. The doctors were trying to figure out a strategy to make me better but had not come up with one. The pastor of my church had started a 40-day fast, and the following Sunday, called his personal intercessors together and asked us to join him in the fast. I knew that I had to be very careful about my diet and eating because of the digestive disorder. I immediately assumed that I had a really good reason for not doing this fast. But God began to convict my heart that maybe I was supposed to do this long fast. (Coincidently, I had not had breakfast before service.) After church, I went away to a private place to pray and seek God on this. The thought of the fast really scared me because of the health problems I was having. I told God about my fears. His reply surprised me. He said, "Teresa, if it were to kill you to obey what I command you to do, would that be any excuse not to obey Me?" After wrestling with that for a while, I made a commitment and started the fast. Strangely, I did not have a single symptom of my health problem from the moment I committed to the fast. God seemed to take the problem away for the duration of the fast, and I felt better and healthier while fasting than I had for months preceding it. I was afraid that I would get sick again once the fast was over. But the healing held even after I stopped fasting, and the doctors were unable to explain my recovery.
The second type of commitment prayer is when God calls you into some type of covenant or long-term commitment with Him. A covenant is an agreement between two parties where each person involved has their part that they agree to carry out. When you enter into a covenant with God, God has His part that He will do and you have your part that you will do.
The most basic covenant is, of course, a commitment to walk out the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of your life - for Him to be Boss, in control and calling the shots and for you to be committed to obeying Him. God's part is to teach you how to do this, then to clearly and actively lead and guide you and reveal Himself and His will to you. Your part, of course, is to obey what He tells you and do what He shows you to do. It also involves not doing things He does not want you to do. He even gets the right to dictate how you spend your money and your leisure time. There is a transfer of control that takes place. God gets control of your life, of your actions and your destiny. He makes the decisions, then you do what He says. However, along with that you get increased intimacy and friendship with God, clarity in hearing His voice, and His presence, power and anointing in your day-to-day life. (I think we get the better end of that bargain!)
I hope that each person who reads this will make a serious commitment to Jesus' Lordship in every area of your life. You can enter into an agreement (or covenant) with God where He becomes the boss and you become committed to obeying Him and doing things His way. Once you make this type of commitment, your entire life will change. It will become incredibly better as God brings His presence and His Lordship into many areas of your life. If you are not already in this type of covenant with God, please consider it. I hope you will spend some of your prayer time this week talking to God about this.
God may call you into other covenants to deal with specific areas in your walk with Him. I shared earlier how I used to be terrified of being deceived because deep down I didn't trust God to correct me or clarify if I heard Him wrong. At one point, the Father invited me into a special covenant with Him. My part was to trust Him and to begin to step out quickly to obey what He showed me. His part was to gently and lovingly correct me if I heard wrong and to make sure I did not make serious mistakes as I sought to obey and honor Him.
God may want to enter into a covenant with you to deal with some area He's working on in your life, just as He dealt with my fear of deception by entering into a covenant with me to correct me if I heard wrong. Covenants with God should not be entered into lightly, because once you enter into a contract with God, He's going to expect you to keep your end of the bargain and He will keep His. So you should prayerfully explore any covenant with God before you enter into it.
The third type of covenant prayer is renewing an existing covenant. That means that we remind ourselves of our covenant with God and make a fresh recommitment to keeping it. We may also want to remind ourselves of the things God has done and will continue to do for us in keeping His side of the covenant. I have three covenants with God: one with the Father (the one about trusting Him to correct me), one with Jesus (about Him being Lord/boss) and one with the Holy Spirit.
The one with the Holy Spirit started in a really neat way. I was driving down a road I frequently drive. I stopped at stop sign and began thinking about how the Father had worked with the children of Israel, leading them and caring for them in the wilderness, etc. Then Jesus came to die for our sins and rose from the dead and ascended back into heaven. But the Holy Spirit is stuck here on earth, in the lives of a bunch of believers who frequently grieve and disobey Him. I thought to myself that He's getting a raw deal and that it must be no fun for Him to work in our lives when we are resisting Him.
I prayed briefly, "Holy Spirit, I'm sorry about the times I fight and resist You. If You help me to do so, I would like to cooperate with You when You are working to lead or transform me." I got through the stop sign and began to drive. Suddenly the Holy Spirit said, "Teresa, did you really mean that?" I said yes. Then He invited me to enter into a covenant with Him. He would lead me and transform me to be more like Jesus and my part was to actively cooperate with Him in the process.
I drive through that area frequently and I pass that stop sign several times a week. It's a special place to me, my place of covenant. And it reminds me of the agreement I have with the Holy Spirit. I frequently renew my covenant with the Holy Spirit when I drive past that location, which is at least four or five times a week. A lot of times I will pray something like, "Holy Spirit, I'm glad I'm in that covenant with you. Please keep transforming me to make me more like Jesus. And please make me aware of when I begin resisting you and help me to cooperate with you in it."
Renewing the covenant makes me conscientious about the agreement I have with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes when He is doing a deep work I will put up walls and resist Him without intending to. Then I will drive past this "place of covenant" and He will remind me that I have agreed to cooperate with Him as He transforms me. That almost always leads to an in-depth conversation where He will discuss how He wants me to cooperate with Him in this particular area. This is an example of "renewing-the-covenant" type of prayer.
Prayerful Study
The Bible encourages us to study and grow in our faith. It is a biblical concept; God does want us to study and grow in our faith. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, "Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth" (AMP).
Study can be done independently of prayer, or it can be incorporated into your prayer life. In other words, you can study on your own, or you can study with God. This applies to reading/studying the Bible, and it applies to books on Christian growth and even to studying things like church history or theology. Personally, I like to invite God into my study, to ask Him to speak to me or give me insights on whatever I am studying. He will often call things to my attention that I might have otherwise missed. Or He may speak to me on a subject or He may even suggest I look up a certain word in the Bible dictionary or concordance. When we invite God to become involved with us in our study, then our study enters the realm of prayer.
There will be times when God has a lot to say to us on a certain topic, and we don't get very far in the reading because of all God desires to speak to us. There will be other times when He will allow us to do a fair amount of reading or study and comment only occasionally on what we are reading. God likes to ask me questions when I'm studying to get me thinking about the material and seeing how to apply it to my life and Christian walk. It's normal for God to speak to me when I'm reading His Word, because I make it my habit to invite Him into the process, to speak to me and show me things from it.
There are times when He will give me a piece of information and then make me research it to get the whole story. For instance, one time God told me that He did not allow Aaron to grieve publicly when He killed two of Aaron's sons. I was really surprised by that. "Lord, you killed Aaron's sons? Why would you do that?" He told me to go look it up. I had to go to the online Bible and do a word search on "Aaron" and "son" and I found the story in Leviticus 10.
And there are times when it is critical for us to know how God feels on a certain topic because we need to make an important decision. I remember one time when I belonged to a church that I really liked, and where all my close friends went. One of the lay leaders, a very popular man, fell into something the Bible clearly calls sin. Instead of correcting him, the pastoral staff called his lifestyle "holiness" because he hadn't also fallen into another specific sin. I was horrified the pastors would call sin "holiness" and allow their leaders to participate freely in it. As much as I loved the church, I began to wonder if it was OK to belong to it because of this serious sin issue that the church was saying was OK. I went to God and sought Him with every ounce of my being. Instead of speaking directly to me, He had me fast and pray for 40 days.
During that time, God told me to research and read every verse with the word holiness in it and to check out every passage that had talked about calling sin "holiness." I ended up doing quite a bit of dialogue with the Lord and self-examination as I studied the Scriptures. God was with me in this study process and spoke to me quite a bit during it. By the end of my prayerful study and 40-day fast/prayer, it became clear that God didn't want me affiliated with a church (no matter how good its worship, no matter how good of a speaker the pastor was) that called sin holiness. I left that church and went elsewhere.
The reason I shared that story with you was to give you an example of prayerful study toward making a major decision. The point of prayerful study is to invite God into the process to speak to you and help you grow in Him and discern His will as you study.
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