Seriously? Seriously? (How I Know When God is Speaking)

We went around the circle, sharing ways we hear God speak, and how we know that it's God.

"It feels intoxicating."

"There is an echo within me - His spirit agreeing with my spirit."

"It matches up with scripture."

All of these pleasant ways of knowing.

I squirmed, just a little, wondering if I should add my voice to this conversation, knowing that what I would say wouldn't sound quite so pleasant.

Mentally sighing and shrugging just a little at the prideful realization that I cared what these people thought, and that I didn't particularly want to be the voice of dissent, and have that color their opinion of me, I began to speak.

"I know it's God when my response is 'Seriously?!?'  I've heard and experienced God in most all of the ways we've talked about, but the most common way that God speaks, and that I know it is really Him is when it is not something I could have ever come up with on my own.  Quite often it's the last thing I want to do.  It almost always drags me far beyond my comfort zone.  And most of the time it doesn't make any sense.  It's the thing that I will fight, and it won't go away.  The thing that causes me to fall immediately back on my favorite Grey's Anatomy explanation and cry 'Seriously! Seriously?'"

The circle was quiet for a moment, until the friend sitting to my left adamantly agreed and shared a bit of her own experience.  The group talked a little bit more about this - that often the things God calls us to are the ones that make very little sense.

I don't know if it colored their opinions of me, but that moment of sharing has stuck with me.  I've thought about it nearly daily in the week since the retreat where it happened.

It makes me smile, this God who mostly speaks to me in a way that arouses my sarcasm, in a way that leaves me wanting to fight, and cower in my safe place, rather than risk trusting.  It makes me smile that He knows that even despite this tendency to fight, I am generally willing to obey, and that He is continually determined to broaden my comfort zone, and my ability to love and trust deeply.

Today I'm asking you - how does God speak to you, and how do you know it's him?