3 Signs God Is Trying to Get Your Attention

don't miss out on his voice. Welcome back, friend. You are listening to the Teacher Us to Pray podcast, where we teach believers practical and real life tips on how to grow your faith and relationship with God through the power of prayer. I'm Christina Patterson hopes that they Teach Us to Pray podcast and founder of Beloved Women, where I encourage, equip and empower women in the love of

Jesus Christ and the truth of God's Word. Have you ever been somewhere like in church or a conference, meeting or class and you desire to get your friend's attention. However, they were looking straight ahead. They were not paying you any attention, and so either you tap them on the shoulder, you waved your hands, or you just intently stared at them, hoping that they could feel your stare and turn their

heads so that you could finally get their attention. We go through all of this to get someone's attention because we want them to hear us. And as we've said over and over again on this podcast, prayer isn't just about us asking God for things. It's Him speaking to us. And this is so power powerful because what God has to say his word over our lives, well it's life changing. So if God is trying to get our attention, we certainly want to be aware of it and we want

to be able to respond. But we can't hear him and respond to him when he's trying to get our attention if we don't know that he's trying to get our attention in the first place, often we are distracted. We have so many things like social media, Netflix, and more competing for our attention, and usually these things spend a lot of time and billions of dollars to get our attention. Because your attention is valuable, so we need to ensure that we are giving our attention to God.

So today I want to share with you a few ways to know that God is trying to get your attention. The first way is through what I call coincidence. The Cambridge University definition defines coincidence as an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising to you. So for example, let's say you and your friend both wear the exact same dress to a party. You might

say that is a coincidence. Or you and your husband both bring the same type of dinner home that night because you both had the similar craving. That would be a coincidence. Now, we may see a coincidence as just happenstance, But because of God's sovereignty and supreme rule over everything, God has the ability to cause a co incidents to get our attention. Often coincidences surprise us, delight us, and even shock us. Sometimes and sometimes God will use this

to get our attention. So, for example, this month, I have been memorizing Philippians Chapter four, verses six and seven, just in a heart to overcome just some anxiety in my life. The verse reads, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts

and your minds in Christ Jesus. So clearly you can see here how this verse is really speaking to me about overcoming anxiety and choosing prayer and thanksgiving as opposed to worry and stress and anxious thoughts. So it's been really helpful for me. At the same time, as I've decided to memorize this scripture this month, I've been seeing

it a lot of other places. I'll open up a devotional that I'm reading and see the verse right there, or I'll be looking online for something else or a past Bible study video that I created, and I'll stumble across the verse again. So while some people might view this as a coincidence, I see it as a sign that God is trying to get my attention. He is encouraging me to really lean into this verse and see what it has to say. The next sign that you can look for that God is trying to get your

attention is when you're having dreams. Okay, that is right. Sometimes God will use dreams to get our attention, not just speak to us now. Not every dream that we have is God speaking to us and needs to be interpreted. Sometimes we just ate too many tacos the night before. But even if that's the case, oftentimes dreams, especially ones that we remember when we wake up, they get our attention. They get our mind wondering, well, why did I have

that dream? The Bible tells us that it is the character of God to conceal a matter, but it's the privilege of kings to uncover it. So God likes to sometimes allow us to experience things that we're not really sure what they mean, so that we will then seek Him. The whole purpose is to get our attention, so that will lean in, will listen a little bit more intently, we'll pray a little bit harder to gain understanding from God. Whether your dream is a message from God or not,

I can't tell you that. But oftentimes if it's something that shook you either or just made you a little bit more interested about what that was about. But it turns your heart and your mind towards God, that can be God trying to get your attention. The end goal is to hear from Him, not necessarily to interpret the dream moment by moment, but to lean in to say, God, what's going on in my life that will cause me

to have this particular dream. Now it could be Okay, I just ate a little bit too much the night before, or as the Bible tells us that when you have many cares on your heart, you start to dream. And the Bible tells us that we should be casting our cares on God. And so that dream might just be a sign from God getting your attention that, Hey, you got a lot weighing on your heart right now, why don't you cast that and put it at my feet

and let me take care of it. The final sign that I want to share with you that God might be trying to get your attention is confirmation. And this is when God gives you a message or he shares something with you, but then you hear it from someone else, and this is just confirming what He's already said to you, and He's trying to get your attention so that you

really take what he's communicating to you seriously. It's kind of like adding an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence or bolding a paragraph to highlight that, hey, this point right here is super important and God is trying to get your attention. There was something specific that God was leading me to do, and I had a friend confirm it. She said, Christina, I think you should do this. And God had already been speaking to me

about it. So that was one friend. So that just affirms to me, Okay, God's really trying to get my attention to go in this direction. But then I briefly shared with some friends my thoughts about heading in this direction that the Lord was leading me in, and I had a friend text me and say, hey, can you call me really quick? And I said okay, So I called her and she just confirmed, without me even giving her all the details everything that God had already been

speaking to me and she was just saying it. She was like, as a matter of fact, God gave me this in my morning devotion this morning, and it might be for you, and let me tell you it was. It was so impactful and it really got my attention because it just echoed, well, God had already been placing on my heart and so now I'm sitting up a little bit straight, more straight, my ears are perked up, and I'm like, okay, God, I see that you're trying

to get my attention. You're making this clear. Let me listen, let me follow, let me hear what you have to say. It is my hope that today's episode has provided you with insightful and helpful tips on how you can pray give to you. Be sure to download my free five day prayer guide and take my prayer personality quiz at prayquiz dot com to learn how you best hear from God and connect with Him in prayer. You may find

all links in today's show notes. We have so much more to talk about when it comes to prayer, so I hope that if you are encouraged by today's episode, you will share it with a friend and subscribe so that you don't miss any future episodes of the Teach Us to Pray Podcast, where we will continue to learn how, just like breathing, prayer can become a natural, consistent, and

life giving part of our everyday lives. Until then, be sure to connect with me at Belovedwomen dot org and join me on the Beloved Women app for unlimited and add free videos to grow your faith, learn God's word, and encourage your soul. Available now in the Apple and Google play stores or at Beloved Women dot tv. Thank you so much for taking time to listen today. God bless you, and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Teach Us to Pray is a production of Life Audio

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