Part 3 (1/2)
”G.o.d did whisper to me once,” Jane wrote in her email reply. ”I'm absolutely sure of it.” Shortly after her husband pa.s.sed away, she was in bed crying herself to sleep-again-and sensed G.o.d offering specific words to soothe her soul. ”You are not alone,” he said, which was all Jane needed to know. Hearing from the One who never will leave your side stems loneliness every time.
Another woman, Lisa, said she knows G.o.d spoke to her too. She had been prompted to start a Mothers of Preschoolers group at Willow but was unsure of her skills and available time. Still she pressed on, believing it was what G.o.d had asked her to do. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until she was due to give a talk at the first meeting of the year.
”I seriously thought I was going to be sick,” Lisa wrote. ”I had prayed and prayed for weeks beforehand, and had prepared carefully, but now that the occasion was upon me, my throat was closing up.”
Moments before Lisa was to take the stage, she sensed G.o.d say, ”Lisa, you've done the faithful work of preparation. Now all you have to do is go out there and open your mouth. Once you do that, I'll take it from there.”
With renewed confidence, Lisa walked out on the stage and gave a talk that ministered to many young mothers.
Jill used to work at a Fortune 500 company. At one point, she was given a special project that had her reporting directly to the CEO. Suffice it to say, with visibility like that, the pressure to ”get it right” was intense. The project timeline was aggressive, and the people involved disagreed at every turn. Partway through her leaders.h.i.+p of the project, Jill began to unravel.
”One day I went into the ladies' room,” Jill said. ”Given that I worked mostly with males, this was the safest place to fall apart. But in the midst of that river of tears, I sensed G.o.d's whisper to me: 'Be still and know that I am G.o.d,' he said. And then he whispered it a second time.”
From that moment until the end of her project, whenever Jill faced seemingly overwhelming stress, rather than falling apart she would focus on the reality of G.o.d's presence in her life. This provided her a ”still” center from which she could continue her work.
And then there was Jeanne, who said she clearly heard G.o.d's voice in the midst of her company's layoffs. ”I was so concerned about my work status that I was having trouble sleeping,” she said. ”I would play out hypothetical scenarios over and over again: What if I lost my job? What if I couldn't afford rent? What if I wasn't able to find employment again? What if? What if? What if?”
Suddenly G.o.d cut through the noise in her head and simply said, ”Worry not.” It was such a straightforward and obvious solution, but it made all the difference that night. Two simple words: Worry not!
Many of the stories I received showcased G.o.d's tenderness toward his followers. A woman named Susan received this type of whisper from G.o.d at a Cubs game, of all places.
”The bases were loaded,” Susan said, ”and all of a sudden I was aware of how many people were sitting inside that stadium. There were a lot. I then thought about how many people were in the city, the state, the nation and the world. Again, a lot! Too many people to count, even.
”In that moment, and for the first time in a long time, I considered the fact that despite all of those people to care for, G.o.d was aware of me. He whispered, 'I know all about you, every detail of your life. And I love you.'”
Just as G.o.d was imparting this message to Susan, the Cubs. .h.i.t a grand slam, which explains to me why the memory was so vivid-the Cubs never hit grand slams.
A Willow dad named Paul wrote in and said, ”My family and I were on vacation on the island of Kauai when I decided to take a hike by myself. I got to the top of a mountain and sensed G.o.d's presence in such a strong way that I stopped moving altogether and listened for what he was trying to say.”
Paul and his wife had just adopted a baby boy named Evan, and what G.o.d conveyed to him that day was this: ”As much as you love your brand-new son, I love you infinitely more.”
The realization almost melted Paul, a man who had never considered G.o.d's love in that way. All Christ-followers could use reminders like that.
Reading through all of the email replies was like riding an emotional roller coaster-one minute I was soaring on people's highest highs and the next minute the bottom would fall out. A woman at our church named Candace wrote about an excruciatingly painful situation she had endured, resulting from some bad choices she had made. ”I kept waiting for some horrible consequence to my sin,” she said, ”thinking that the shame I was experiencing was going to be with me the rest of my life.”
Then she came across Romans 8:34, which says, ”Who can say G.o.d's people are guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead, and now he is on G.o.d's right side, appealing to G.o.d for us” (NCV).
Candace said, ”As I read those words, I sensed G.o.d saying, 'My conviction is not meant to crush you. I will not let you be destroyed by the feelings you are carrying over your sinful situation. You have my word.'”
I devote an entire chapter of this book-chapter 6, ”Light for Dark Nights of the Soul”-to this idea that G.o.d meets us at our deepest point of need. Candace's experience proves that, as do the next two that you'll read.
A woman wrote to tell me that earlier this year, her husband of thirty-five years committed suicide. She heard a gunshot, she ran into the room where he had been and she found her beloved husband dead on the floor. He had no history of depression, no known illness and no obvious cause for wanting to die. And yet now he was gone.
Two hours after she discovered her husband's lifeless figure, and in the midst of a flurry of emergency-personnel activity, she was walking through the foyer of her home toward the kitchen when something almost tangibly stopped her short. ”It was like a force actually prevented me from moving,” she said. ”Once I was perfectly still, I felt a warm, almost liquid feeling move from my head all the way to my toes.”
She went on to explain that there in the foyer, G.o.d whispered, ”I will walk with you.” There was no a.s.surance of a quick walk, an easy walk or a pain-free walk. But even if the walk proved long and agonizing, she knew that her G.o.d would be by her side, every single step of the way. Today, this faithful woman is involved in Willow's grief-support workshops. She says that although there are sad moments and difficult days, she lives with a heart that is open to G.o.d and to whatever he might say.
I don't know what a story like this does to you, but it does wonders for my faith. Hearing how G.o.d is upholding a brokenhearted sister in Christ reminds me how ready he is to steady me too.
One more, and then we'll move on.
A man named Troy in our congregation responded to my plea for G.o.d-whispers with a story that truly was incredible to read.
Several summers ago, Troy arrived home on a typical Friday afternoon. He had endured a rigorous week at work as a day trader and decided to jump on his motorcycle and head to his health club so he could relieve a little stress. As he describes it, minutes after that seemingly innocuous decision, Troy found himself lying in the intersection of two neighborhood roads, his skull fractured and his brain exposed. He had been hit by a sixteen-year-old girl who pulled out from an adjacent gas station and into oncoming traffic before looking both ways. Witnesses relayed that the girl had been fighting with friends in her car over a cell phone. Her blood tests later came back positive for various illegal drugs.
After someone called 911, a fatality crew was deployed to the scene. Troy doesn't remember seeing anyone from that crew; he only remembers a woman kneeling over him, grabbing a s.h.i.+rt from his gym bag and holding his head together in a makes.h.i.+ft tourniquet until ”official” help arrived. ”The only thing she said to me was, 'Can you lift up your head?' I told her that I thought I could, but then I blacked out.”
The woman would be unaccounted for in the police record, but Troy knows she was present that day-G.o.d's whisper of tender care sent in the form of a mystery woman with a crumpled s.h.i.+rt holding up his wounded head. ”By G.o.d's grace I recovered from that incredible ordeal, and by his Word my heart was healed too. When I think back on that situation, I recite Psalm 3:3: 'But you, LORD, are a s.h.i.+eld around me, my glory, the one who lifts my head high.'”
For guys like Troy-and people like you and me as well-I imagine there is nothing like being pa.s.sed out on death's doorstep to reveal what we really believe about G.o.d. In those harrowing moments and in mundane ones too, I hope we'll remember the truth. He is the lifter of our heads and our hearts.
Whispers of Admonition
If there's ever a time when you and I employ ”selective listening,” it's when we're on the receiving end of a dressing-down, courtesy of G.o.d himself. Have you noticed this dynamic along the way? G.o.d suggests that you stop doing something or start doing something or, for once in your life, act your age, and instantly, G.o.d gets tuned out. ”Surely that piece of insight wasn't from G.o.d” you think. ”I was probably just making it up.”
You go on your pre-planned way, thinking everything is copasetic once more, until minutes or days or a few weeks later, when you careen face-first into the brick wall known as G.o.d's wisdom, and realize it was his voice you actually ignored.
As I scrolled through hundreds of emails from our congregation, I was impressed by how many of these G.o.d-whisper stories dealt with tough, admonis.h.i.+ng promptings. It takes real maturity to make significant changes in our lives, but for those who are gutsy enough to do so, rich blessings await.
If you're up for a challenge, I dare you to read the brief stories that follow and then give G.o.d your wide-open ear. It just might be that he has a few love-fueled rebukes lined up for you as well.
”I GREW UP IN A FAMILY WHERE YELLING WAS PROTOCOL, AN accepted behavior,” Linda writes. ”If something happened that was aggravating, or if an honest mistake was made, we didn't talk about it. Instead, someone just yelled.
”As a young mother of two toddlers, I never hesitated to raise my voice at spilled milk, upended dishes or unexplained crying from my little girls. One evening as I was preparing dinner, the girls were playing in the food pantry-stacking cans, in an attempt, evidently, to climb to heaven and see our dog that recently died. Somehow, in the midst of their childlike construction project, a large container of vegetable oil opened and oozed out everywhere-on clothes, hair, little fingers and feet, and through the cracks of the beautiful wood floor.
”I turned from the stove where I was cooking and literally was about to verbally pounce at my daughters with a raised and angry voice. But in the split second it took for me to turn, I distinctly heard G.o.d's voice say these words: 'Linda, no more yelling. Deal with the situation. Correct the children, but do so without ranting.' In that moment I found myself incapable of raising my voice and unable to find disparaging words. To this day, it's almost physically impossible for me to erupt in anger. Thank you, thank you, G.o.d.”
As I read Linda's story, I thought, ”The fact that she heeded just one simple whisper during a critical moment likely will change her family's legacy forever.” Amazing what can happen when one believer listens to G.o.d.
Other examples of succinct whispers radically altered their recipient's errant att.i.tudes. Fara wrote in to tell me about the first time she sensed G.o.d ”speak.”
”I was in my car, crying over a painful breakup I'd just gone through, and felt devastated at a deep level. I wasn't even a Christian yet, but for some reason, I cried out, 'G.o.d, why does it hurt so much when I'm just trying to love someone?'
”I wasn't really talking to G.o.d, but to my surprise he is the one who answered me. 'Fara,' he said, 'that's exactly how I feel when I keep trying to love you.' Thud. That one hit dead center.”
Fara soon surrendered her life to Jesus Christ and as a result, began to hear from G.o.d far more frequently.