Part 4 (1/2)

One woman, Debbi, wrote in to say that it was during her mother's final days on earth that she was prompted by G.o.d to act. She and her sister had interviewed several hospice options, and although her sister was comfortable with a couple of them, Debbie wasn't so sure. She committed the matter to prayer and several days later sensed G.o.d saying, ”It is you who should be the caregiver for your mom.”

Debbi made the necessary arrangements and cared for her mother until her dying day two months later. ”It was a wonderful journey I would not trade for anything,” she wrote. ”I shared meals and chats and moments with my mom that otherwise I never would have known.”

Another powerful story came from Linda, who wrote, ”A friend of mine from our college days had become pregnant outside of marriage and was tormented daily with the stress of weighing whether or not she wanted the child.”

To Linda's dismay, her friend decided that she would have an abortion. ”I begged her to come visit me for a week, so that we could shop and play and talk. We had an amazing time together, followed by something more amazing still. After I had hugged her goodbye at the airport and was walking back to my car, I got the distinct impression from G.o.d that I was supposed to deliver a message to her.

”I ran all the way back to the terminal, yelling her name through the crowd like a crazy person. Finally I found her. I embraced her in a hug and then pulled away, clasped her elbows and said, 'I'm supposed to tell you this: Even if you get all the way to the doctor's office, you're already lying down on the table and your feet are in the stirrups, you still can change your mind. You can get up, walk out and choose to give this little one life.'”

A week later, Linda received a phone call from her friend, who had done just that. Today the child that woman chose to keep is healthy, beautiful and thirteen lively years old.

I heard from a woman named Alison who had been eagerly antic.i.p.ating a job interview for several weeks. A few hours before the interview, her mom called and invited her to lunch. She was about to explain why it wasn't a good day to meet, when G.o.d prompted her to take another tack. ”I cancelled my interview and went to lunch with my parents,” Alison said. ”To my utter disbelief, the next morning my mom suffered a fatal heart attack. How grateful I am for that last lunch date, when I could lavish her with praise and love.”

An email from a man named Todd read, ”During my prayer time not long ago, I asked G.o.d how I could serve him that day. It was like he was sitting right next to me. He whispered, 'Love my people.' That firsthand interaction caused me to look at people differently that day, and also every day since.”

A man named Kevin wrote about a series of unexpected actions he was prompted to take. One summer he had taken a large group of students to a conference and partway through the week decided he needed a break. (Teenagers will do that to a guy.) Kevin begged off of an afternoon excursion with the kids, and instead headed to his room to take a nap. En route, he pa.s.sed a park where a young boy was kicking around a soccer ball all by himself. ”Why don't you play with him for a while?” came the whisper.

While playing soccer for half an hour, Kevin would learn that the boy's name also was Kevin, that he had just turned eleven, and that the two of them shared the same birthday-the eleventh of June. Kevin the elder sensed that G.o.d was up to something big. The birthday discussion led the older Kevin to mention the fact that he has a physical birthday and a spiritual birthday, which he celebrates in honor of surrendering his life to Christ. The little boy was interested in knowing more, and in that moment a would-be nap was transformed into an evangelistic appointment set by the G.o.d of the universe himself.

Financial Actions

I read dozens of powerful stories having to do with people releasing their grip on money. See if the three that follow inspire you to do the same!

James wrote, ”I've never felt very in tune with the leadings of the Holy Spirit, but one particular prompting was unusually strong. A few years ago I was asked to support a ministry initiative in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and I quickly said no. In fact, my standard answer to requests for money has always been a very quick no. The subject then would be dropped.

”But over the next three months,” James continued, ”the Holy Spirit went to work on me. Increasingly, I felt a strong sense that I was supposed to provide the support I had been asked to donate. I called the man back and for the first time in my life said yes to a financial request.

”Several months later I had the opportunity to visit the people of Guayaquil, and as I watched them engage in heartfelt wors.h.i.+p and saw them learn about the G.o.d I love, I was overwhelmed with grat.i.tude that he had let me play a part.”

A woman named Mikki wrote that several years ago, after receiving an inheritance from her dad, she sensed G.o.d telling her not to t.i.the on the monies quite yet. ”I waited and waited,” she explained, ”but soon I began to doubt if I had heard G.o.d's voice at all. I wondered whether I was being prudent or greedy-I didn't know what to do.”

Within days of all that wondering, Mikki received an email asking for her to consider offering a large one-time gift to an international church. Immediately her heart skipped a beat. ”As I read about the program, I sensed G.o.d saying, 'Now, Mikki. Now is the time.' I was so excited by the prospect of giving to this particular initiative that I picked up the phone, called the number of the man who had sent the email and said, 'Count me in!'

”If I had written my t.i.the check without asking for G.o.d's input, I would have missed the bigger blessing he had in store. In the end I gave away far more money than I had planned to give, and I received vastly more in return.”

Spiritual Actions

Whispers that prompt us to take spiritually oriented action-surrendering a life, praying a prayer, speaking an encouraging word-can be heard all throughout the Christ-following life. (And even beforehand, as we just read in the life of the apostle Paul, when ”Saul” was still his name.) When I first read the stories that follow, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if all believers upped their batting averages on receiving and obeying whispers like those. Perhaps more than through any other means, here is where hearts truly get changed.

A man named Webb wrote to say that the Easter following his wife's death from breast cancer, he and his three young sons were attending Willow's Easter musical The Choice. There was a point in the production when the entire congregation was standing as a wors.h.i.+p leader led a series of songs. It was then that Webb heard from the Lord.

”All of a sudden everything became quiet around me,” he said. ”People were everywhere, but although their lips were moving, there was no sound. Instead, I heard what I guess is the voice of G.o.d. In a kind, fatherly tone, he said, It's time,' to which I quietly replied, 1 know'” You see, though Webb had been a churchgoer for many years, he had never given his life to Christ.

As the volume of the room's noise resumed its previous pitch in Webb's ears, tears streamed down his face. His boys looked at him with worried eyes, wondering what was wrong with their dad. ”I told them, 'Nothing is the matter, boys. In fact, everything is very, very right.'” The G.o.d of the universe had just invited him to become one of his children and he had joyfully said yes.

Verna wrote that her ”spiritual action” was to be directed toward her difficult and degrading boss, a man named John. ”My whisper was telling me to go into his office and invite him to church,” she said. ”But I continued what I was working on and told the whisper, 'No way'”

Verna and the whisper would go back and forth for a while, her ”no” following each new request. Finally ”the whisper” won: ”I got out of my chair, walked directly into my boss's office, asked him if he and his wife would like to join my husband and me at church on Sat.u.r.day night, walked right back to my desk and collapsed back into my chair. 'There,' I said, to n.o.body in particular. 1 did what you asked me to do.'”

A few days later, Verna's boss said yes to the invitation. Not only that, but he and his wife then actually came! Verna looks back on that entire experience now and grins, because her simple step of obedience led to an astounding turn of events. John and his wife began attending church regularly and eventually surrendered their lives to Christ. They were baptized a few weeks after that and serve in a volunteer capacity today.

Another responder, Sheri, wrote, ”I had taken a break from being a small-group leader during a time in my life when several crises were happening at once. Without knowing I had entered a season of spiritual stagnation, the ministry's leaders asked me to step back into leaders.h.i.+p. Before I could even pray about it, G.o.d whispered, 'Get back to it. You experienced the most dramatic spiritual growth of your life when you were a small-group leader. Don't cheat yourself out of that.'”

As soon as Sheri obeyed the prompting, she began to grow in intimacy with Christ once more.

And then there was Susan's story, which is sobering to any parent who has a teenage child. ”I stepped into the garage to put away an extension cord and saw my son's motorcycle standing there. I heard G.o.d say, 'Lay your hands on that bike and pray for your son's safety' I'd received promptings like that before but had just ignored them. What normal mom lays hands on a bike?

”This time, though, the leading would not desist. I walked over, placed both hands on the motorcycle, and asked G.o.d in the name of Jesus to surround my son with angels each time he went out for a ride.

”Later that evening, my son told my husband and me that he was going out on his bike. I told my husband about the prompting I had received, and together we prayed yet again. It wouldn't be until the next day that we would learn of our son's near accident. The buddies he had been riding with were over at our house and said, 'We didn't believe there was a G.o.d until we saw what we saw last night.'” They described last-second, spectacular maneuvers to avoid a collision-maneuvers that seemed beyond human skill.

The last line of Susan's email to me read, ”I'll never ignore a whisper again.”

Acts of Service Many of the action-oriented whisper stories I received fall into what I call the ”acts of service” category. Those service-acts can be simple and immediate, like Cecelia's. She wrote, ”A couple of months ago I came home from the grocery store and heard G.o.d say, 'Give it all away.' I jumped back into my car and drove directly to the church's food pantry.” And she gave it all away.

Or whispers can be longer-term in nature. Barbara's story provides a perfect example: Several years ago during the Christmas season, Barbara visited Willow with friends who already attended the church. She says, ”I was feeling sad and missing my two-year-old grandson, who lives in Arizona. But at some point during that service I received a prompting I could not ignore. G.o.d focused my attention on a ministry at Willow called Promiseland, where volunteers play with and minister to children during each church service. I sat up in my seat and determined that I would become part of the church immediately-and that my Sundays would be spent loving on kids who needed my care. This grandma may miss her own sweet one, but she's filled with joy nevertheless!”

A woman named Bev wrote of a time when her daughter decided to rent a nearby condo that she and her husband owned. One night some kids were throwing mud b.a.l.l.s, one of which happened to hit the condo's front window and shatter it. ”Our daughter got the name and phone number of the young man who threw the mud,” Bev said, ”but when she finally reached the kid's mother, it was apparent the woman didn't have available funds to pay for a replacement pane. The mother promised she would send the money when she could, but with both her husband and her being out of work, the likelihood of that happening was slim.” Bev and her husband paid to have the window repaired.

Several months pa.s.sed, and Bev's daughter still had not heard a word from the kid's mom. Bev decided to call the woman herself. ”It was a couple of days before Thanksgiving,” she explained, ”and I was preparing to do our final grocery shopping. But something prompted me to place the call before I left the house.”

Bev wound up reaching the woman that day, but instead of pressuring her into making good on the funds for the replacement pane, Bev heard herself ask, ”I was just heading out to the grocery store. May I bring you a Thanksgiving meal?”

Shocked by her own spurt of compa.s.sion, Bev went to the store, purchased two of everything her family would be enjoying on Thanksgiving, and with a genuine sense of joy dropped off overflowing bags at the woman's house en route back home. Can you imagine how deeply this unemployed mother must have been marked by a spontaneous gift of generosity from a woman she'd never met-and to whom she owed money?

Mark is a man who worked on staff with the Willow Creek a.s.sociation and says that ever since he married his wife, Sandy, G.o.d frequently has whispered to him. Sandy has Type 1 diabetes, and as Mark soon would learn, the disease caused an hour-by-hour struggle for Sandy, who must ensure a ”normal” blood-sugar level to avoid the perils that come when it is too high or too low.

Mark says that in the early days of their marriage, G.o.d would sometimes prompt him during the middle of the night to wake up and test Sandy's blood-sugar level. On those occasions, he would discover Sandy in the throes of an insulin reaction. She would be sweating profusely, shaking uncontrollably, confused and unable to function. The solution was as simple as a gla.s.s of juice, but Mark recounts time after time when Sandy needed help holding her head up and pressing the cup to her quivering lips.

”Over time,” Mark wrote, ”it became very clear that one of G.o.d's purposes for me in my wife's life is to stay open to his promptings so that I can protect her when she is vulnerable. Nine times out of ten, when G.o.d whispers, 'Wake up!' there's a real problem at hand. I know that it is his grace at work that provides input like that for me.”

Again, I ask you, how important are whispers that prompt people to actions G.o.d wants them to take? They are absolutely critical, my friend, and are the crux of the Christ-following life.