Why This? How God uses a period of your life to shape you

Ross Lake in North Cascades National Park.

Over the last few posts I have shared with you the manner and mechanism by which we have been called back to Humble, Texas.  I always want to share experiences like this so that you might examine your own life to see if the Lord has put a similar pattern in front of you.  This post will be no different, although it is reflective regarding the last 5 years.  I pray the Lord uses this post to help you recognize His work in your own life.

So what was the last 5 years in Everett about?  Why would God call our family from a place where we had friends, family, a career path, and a great church, to move to a spot over 2,000 miles away?  Why would God lead us to a place where we literally did not know a single person?  And why, then, after that same family gets rooted in the community, establishes relationships, and experiences ministry impact, would God send the family right back to where they originally came from?  It doesn't make sense at all if you just look to the surface of things, but God's ways are not our ways and you always need to look deeper at things to get even an inkling of what God is doing.  I will attempt to do that here, although I know it is not a comprehensive look at all that God has done or is doing now.

God is always preparing you for the next thing He has in mind for you.  Circumstances now are used to shape you for what you will face later.  If you and I didn't have that, we would not do well with what is coming.  If you want a plant to grow and bloom, you plant it in good soil, feed it, water it, and make sure it is not attacked by bugs.  In a way, the Lord does things in much the same manner.

In my early posts I shared a lot about what God was doing in my life at the time of our call to Everett.  I had thoughts and attitudes about what God would do with us here.  I really believed after a while that He was going to use us to plant a church here and that it would grow and flourish.  I never really had a good idea on how much, but I just assumed it would happen.  Instead, we were associated with one church that grew a bit while we were there and out of that time we formed deep relationships with some wonderful people.  Then we left to start Purpose Church and the other church eventually died later the following year.  Then three years later Purpose Church died as well, and we found ourselves working with a small church in downtown Everett.  Church ministry did not work out at all like I thought it would.

And then there is ministry itself.  When we first got here I spent a lot of time on the streets praying and attempting to talk to people about Jesus.  I thought that perhaps this would grow into something vibrant as well.  The more I did that, the more discoveries I made about homelessness and the complexity of the issue.  I had friendly encounters on the streets with people who were receptive to hearing about Jesus, and I had encounters with people who became angry and almost violent at the mention of His name.  I spoke to people who seemed like regular people, others who had mental illness, and still others who were high on hard drugs.  I no longer look at street ministry and the homeless crisis the same way.

Our family went from living in the country in the Houston area to living in the middle of a pretty vibrant city, experiencing all of the things that come with living in the city.  We have seen and experienced many things that I never even considered we would see or experience.  We lived in a community with many people who have an idea of God but no real relationship with Him and no interest to cultivate one.  We have seen parades and protests, homeless and affluent, building and burning, life and death, and it all occurred within a short distance from our own home.  All the while Amanda and I took our individual roles as workers in the community, she in PTA and my own as a school administrator, and went about our work with an eye on how Jesus would use those things.  And use those things He did, just not in the ways we would have expected!

I have been reviewing all of these things since March 19th, wondering what it was all about.  Why did God move us here and why would He move us back?  As I have thought about these things I was reminded of the Apostle Paul and what the Lord did to redirect his life from what it was to what it should be.  Paul outlines it for us in Galatians chapter 1:11-12; 16-18.

¹¹ Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. ¹² I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.^[d]

When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being.^{[f] 17} Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.

¹⁸ Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter,^[g] and I stayed with him for fifteen days.

Most people just blow right by some important details in this account which I want to draw your attention to.  Did you notice how long Paul was in the desert of Arabia?  Three full years.  This happened after he met Jesus for the first time on his way to Damascus and after he had recovered his sight.  It would have made a lot of sense to send this passionate and driven man right into ministry.  Surely his gifts would be used in a great way, immediately!  But the Lord's ways are not our ways, so instead He pulled Paul into obscurity and isolation for 3 full years before that other stuff started.  Think back to what you were doing 3 years ago on this date and you'll get some context as to how long of a period of time that is to be by yourself.

And it doesn't stop there in the Bible.  Moses also had to wait, but his wait was much longer and probably very painful.  He waited a full 40 years from the time he was driven out of Egypt to the time he came back.  During that 40 years he tended his father in law's sheep in the desert and likely considered everyday what might have been.  He had been well-positioned in the family of Pharaoh and from a human perspective it would have made a lot of sense for him to eventually be in a position of leadership over a lot of people.  Surely God will make it happen this way!  It makes sense!  And yet, God didn't do it that way, instead making Moses wait.  And yet the Moses who came out of the desert to confront Pharaoh was not the same Moses who left Egypt 40 years before.

The Oyster Dome is a high trail that overlooks Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands.  People hang glide from this spot.

As I have reflected on our time here in Everett, I have also come back to that central question:  what was this all about?  As I have thought about it all including all of the experiences we have had, all the pain along the way, all of the loss and difficulty, all of the gain and blessing, all of the relationships we have come to establish, it helped me to remember something.  The Northwest is to me what the desert was to the Apostle Paul and Moses.  God used this place to bring me closer to Him, and that was His purpose all along.  

He has had me pray more, read more scripture, meditate on scripture more, analyze what is going on around me to see what He's doing in my life, and generally has led me closer to himself.  So many times He allowed me to go out on the streets of Everett thinking that I would be able to share my faith and bring people to the Lord, and in those times I wouldn't run into a single person!  But I prayed a lot during those times.  Jesus walked side by side with me as I prayed to encounter people, prayed for our family and for the people of Everett, and generally got to know the Lord better.  And the Lord needed to pull me from the comfortable and the familiar so He could do this work in my life.  I'm not the same person who left 5 years ago, and praise God for that!

What about you?

Do you find yourself in the middle of your life's circumstances wondering what it is all about?  Do you look back on a time in your life where God led you to a different job, church, ministry, or even another land and you wonder why He did all of that?  You might be drawn into negative and cynical thinking due to things not working out like you thought they would.  I would encourage you to look at the big picture for perspective.  Prayerfully consider the thoughts and attitudes you previously had that were changed as a result of that time.  Consider the relationships you were able to form and cultivate that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.  And especially consider how that time impacted your walk with the Lord. 

If you examine your life and realize you have distanced from the Lord as a result of the circumstances He has put you through, go back to Him!  Talk to Him about your fears, your frustrations, your cares, and ask Him for perspective on what He is doing.  He may not explain to you what everything was about, but it is likely the curtain will get pulled back enough for you to gain insight into His work in your life.  But go to Him in prayer! 

Remember, God is keenly interested in relationship with you and me.  And out of that relationship many wonderful things can come out of you, which is the way it is supposed to be.  That is why Jesus told the woman at the well that drinking from him would give her living water that would turn into a bubbling spring within her.  Springs provide a continual supply of water that does not stop, and they overflow onto a lot of the terrain around them.  That living water comes from Jesus and quenches our spiritual thirst and also can overflow onto everyone around us.  But it begins and ends in relationship to Jesus.

What might God be doing in you through this period in your life?

Circumstances: How God May Get Your Attention

For the last few posts I have been describing for you how God reached into my life to tell us to go back to Houston.  I shared the uncomfortable prayers that I began praying nearly a year ago, and in the second post I was able to describe what He initially told me to do, and in the third post I shared the fear that I encountered afterward and how He dealt with my fear.  In this post, I plan on sharing my experience with how God uses circumstances to get your attention.

I knew that week that I needed to go be alone with the Lord to pray over what He had told me to do.  I needed to leave the house, and I felt I needed to leave the city altogether.  So I made plans to go to one of my favorite places in the Northwest, and quite possibly in the whole world, which thankfully is a short drive away from Everett.  I went to Friday Harbor, Washington, a small town on San Juan Island which is in between Washington and Victoria, British Columbia.  It is a beautiful spot with pristine blue-green water, views of the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges, and much wildlife including Orca whales.  And while this happens to be one of my favorite places, the plan that God had in store for me on this day was better than I could have ever imagined.  When I reach the end of my life, I believe I will look back and count this day among my top 3 that I have lived because I had a deep and personal encounter with Jesus, my shepherd.


I prayed prior to going on this day trip that the Lord would speak clearly to me that day and that His message would be unmistakable.  I know my friends in Houston were doing the same thing.  So I set out that morning playing worship music in my car and tearfully praised God for all He had done in my life.  I feel fortunate to have gone from believing worship is about me and the style of music I like to being about praising God for who He is.  This time of worship was truly a blessing to my heart and brought me closer to the Lord.

On the way north toward the ferry terminal in Anacortes, I was praying and passed by a sign that I nearly missed.  But I saw it when I was supposed to see it, and to me it was not a message about skiing.  

If you think this is strange, bear with me.  There's a larger lesson here for you and me that the Lord wants to teach us.

I pondered that sign for many miles after that, tears in my eyes.  I knew it was for me right them, but continued praying for clarity and that I would hear the Lord.  I boarded the ferry Hyak and we began the hour-long journey to Friday Harbor.  I stayed inside on the passenger deck because it was a very cold day and it was raining.  I spent that hour with my Bible opened, journaling about what I was reading.  The first passage I encountered that morning was Genesis 35:1-3 where God told Jacob to move to Bethel (which means House of God...sounds like a church) to settle there.  It also mentions that God would be with Jacob there, yet another reminder that God would be going with me.

I then flipped back to Ezekiel 11:16-20 and read what the Lord told the exiles.  He told them that He had scattered them among the nations of the world, but that He would be a sanctuary to them during that time.  And then He said that He was planning to gather them back together and give them the land of Israel once again.  Each of these things has applied to our family.

Of note also is the fact that God, in these passages, also was saying that he would renew my heart in this.  I have struggled for the last year since closing Purpose Church with a heart that was stubborn, sometimes stony, as I grappled with the Lord over what that whole painful episode was all about.  Here I saw redemption.  Here I saw renewal.  Here I saw an invitation from the Lord to go on a new journey with Him, and a promise that He would be with me.

As I processed this on the ferry, I became fearful once again because I know what cross-country moves are like.  When we moved to Washington I was naive in this area.  Not so any more.  Moves are stressful by themselves.  Moves with a large family are more stressful.  I no longer had the rose-colored glasses that I used to wear.  But the Lord had an answer for that too as I flipped to Romans 5:3-5.
 
³ We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. ⁴ And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. ⁵ And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

He did not promise me we would avoid difficulty.  He did tell me that it would be with purpose.  When you enter into difficult times, that often is what you need to know in that moment.  Please just tell me there was a purpose to all of this!  And there is.

From that point I got off of the ferry in driving rain and went to a coffee shop right in front of the ferry landing.  I bought a snack and some coffee and sat down with my Bible again.  But this time I did something a little different.  I had brought my journal from the time God moved us out of Texas with the purpose of comparing what it said to what was happening now.  After all, the manner in which God speaks into your life in one circumstance is often how He will speak to you in the next.  I wanted to look for themes and consistency.

This was the view out of the coffee shop as I read God's word and my own journal from 5 years ago.

I had not ever read through my journal from that time in my life, but am glad I did.  What I read made me burst into tears.  I'm sure I looked like a complete fool, so I sat in front of a window looking out at the ferry dock so nobody could see me.  In the journal I read about the scriptures God had led me to that were so specific about moving away from Texas.  I read about the passion He had put in my heart for the new work He was calling me to.  I read about the things He was telling me to do moment by moment, my thoughts on those things, and what He did as a result.  I read about His promises to be with me along the way.  And I also read something that finally released me from the guilt, shame, and brokenheartedness I have long experienced after closing Purpose Church.

In my mind I had gradually shifted my calling to Washington from what God gave and substituted it with my own plan of planting a church.  When the church failed and closed down, I had failed and took it personally.  Up to that very day I had not recovered.  Why did God lead me to Washington and allow this thing to close down?  Why had we rearranged our lives altogether and gone through so much pain? What was that all about?  The Lord redirected me in that sweet moment to a gentle reminder of why He had brought us, written by my own hand.  It simply said this:  "God has called us to Washington to live in the community, work in the community, build relationships with those around us, and to share about Jesus every chance we got."  Well, we did do that.  In fact, that is what we have been most successful at doing.  It was as if a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders in that moment, a weight I had put there and held onto.  It was a weight I was never intended to bear. 

As it turns out, I had misread the ferry schedule and my ferry home would not be arriving for several more hours, so I went for a two mile walk on a road leading out of the town of Friday Harbor.  I believe God had done this on purpose because He was not done reassuring me of His plan.  So I set out and the rain finally stopped.  As I walked, I prayed more and more and more for clarity.  I told God that I was concerned to have invented these things on my own and that I wasn't hearing from Him.  I told Him that I don't feel much like a good pastor and that I don't feel strong enough to do the work.  He immediately reminded me that absolute, total surrender would be necessary to do it His way, and that gave me peace.  And then I came to the fork in the road that looked like this.  It speaks for itself.

Here I stood with the Lord and stared at a place that represented my life at that moment.  I could move on with my career and keep doing it.  I could focus all of my life on building a school up and the community around it, investing all of my time and my passion and my heart and energy in this endeavor.  But that road would ultimately lead nowhere of significance.  In fact, that road is a road paved by human hands and littered with pride and self-centeredness.  Or, I could acknowledge this turning point and go down that road, which leads over a hill and around a bend, and I can't see what is coming next.  To go down this road I would need to have faith since a map does not exist.  I would have to rely on the Lord.

While this place got my attention and turned my heart, a little further down the road I made a final commitment to the Lord on a beautiful beach facing out into open water.  I stood before the Lord on that spot and told Him that if He was calling on our family to move back to Humble, we would go with no questions asked.  And in that moment, God said "okay, now head back to the ferry because you are close to being late!"

How does God get our attention?

Let me make this personal for you.  Has God ever gotten your attention?  It might have been over some sin in your life, or something He wanted you to do, or an answer to a prayer that you had prayed.  His tools for getting your attention are many.  After all, he knows how you are wired because He wired you Himself!  He knows how you think because He designed the mechanisms for doing that.  

That sign that I saw on the way to Friday Harbor was not coincidence.  I am convinced that God had placed it there in that moment for me to see.  To all of the other people driving on I-5 it was just a sign about skiing.  To me, it was a sign of change.  And how about the second sign marking Turn Point Road and Black Road, indicating a dead end?  To any other passersby, this was just a road sign.  To me, it was God getting my attention.

I know what you are probably thinking.  You mean you are rearranging your whole life because of something you read on a sign?  Nope.

The signs were just two pieces of the puzzle, but God used them to get my attention.  God used scripture and prayer over and over and over again to tell me what to do.  He led me to messages in the Bible that were consistent, specific, and meant for me to read in that moment.  And these things were all backed by significant times of prayer with Him where He answered me directly either while I was praying or just afterward.  And God also used these two road signs as a reinforcer, an affirmation, a consistent message about what we should do.  He knows how I am wired.  I am visual and pay great attention to symbolism, and that is exactly what He used to talk to me in that moment.  And it matched with everything else He had been telling me through every other venue.

Would I still choose to move back to Humble, Texas even if I did not see those signs?  Absolutely, positively yes.  What God had told me to this point was ultra clear.  He used two visual reminders on that day to remind me that He really is walking beside me through the changes.  He reminded me that wherever I happen to go, He is already there.

I would caution you on one thing about circumstances.  I have seen and heard about many well-meaning Christians who will read something like this and then start believing every sign, every word from a friend or family member or a pastor, or even pictures or paintings are God telling them what to do.  Don't do that.  Taken by themselves those things may not be from the Lord at all.  You simply must go to the Lord in prayer and in the Bible to look for consistency.  If what you happen to be reading in God's word, what you are hearing in your prayer life, and your circumstances seem to align and say the same thing, I believe you can take that as the Lord being in it.  But don't go down the road of looking only at circumstances. 

What is God telling you to do right now?  The One who made your inmost parts knows how you think, knows what you think about, and has witnessed personally every moment of your life.  This God who takes up residence inside of His followers will talk to you using a variety of methods.  He has a history of doing that in the Bible (see Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Balaam, Paul, and many others).  What is he saying to you right now?  I would encourage you today to go spend time with Him and listen.  And then...GO!

Facing Fear after God Speaks

In the last post I began telling you about how God began telling me that He wanted our family to move back to "the land of your father."  This was just the beginning of what turned out to be a pivotal week spent with the Lord where He spoke so clearly, so distinctly, and so sweetly into my life.  I will continue sharing the details of that call here so that you may recognize Him speaking directly to you about something.

Where we last left off God had very clearly told me to go back to Texas, the land of my ancestors.  I was very excited to hear from the Lord like this, but over time my initial enthusiasm began giving way to anxiety and even fear.  I woke up the next morning feeling like I needed to fast and pray that day, even though it would be a full workday.  That I did, although I was very distracted that day and am certain that our staff could tell.  It was hard to focus on anything work-related.  My anxiety was turning to fear of many things at once:  fear that I was actually hearing God, fear of the unknown, fear of abandoning everything and starting over yet again, fear of not knowing what the new ministry would be like, fear of letting our current church down, fear of letting our new church down, and fear of letting my school and the Northwest down. I had to go to the Lord again and again about that all day long.

At the end of my workday I went home and sensed that I needed to be alone with the Lord.  The weather was decent so I decided to walk through our neighborhood to one of my favorite spots that overlooks Puget Sound and the harbor.  As I walked there I prayed to the Lord about all of the anxiety and fear I was experiencing.  I told Him I was scared about many things and didn't know which way to go.  I didn't know what to do with it other than take those things to God directly, which scripture tells me is the way to go.  As I walked, the Lord suddenly brought James 1:5-8 to mind.

⁵ If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. ⁶ But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

One of my favorite places to sit and pray near our house.  This spot is a real blessing!

The Lord in His goodness told me what to do right then.  He was telling me through this passage that I needed to ask Him directly about this call to confirm it, and to bring my fears to him.  I believe in that moment He was emphasizing that I should not run to people to get their thoughts, as I tend to do.  He was telling me to come directly to Him and that if I did that, He would not rebuke me for asking and that He would tell me what to do.  But it was also clear to me that I needed to be alone with God so I could hear what He was saying.  I needed to get away from all of the people around me to hear His still, small voice in my life.  I needed to put away my phone and resist the tendency to call friends in ministry to see what they thought. 

Frankly, it is a lot easier to run to people around me to see what they think than to go to the Lord about a situation.  People are right there, sometimes in person and sometimes a phone call or text away.  And while I believe people can speak into your life a message from the Lord, they also are subject to their own motivations and motives, passions, feelings, and opinions.  And many times those things are not from the Lord and can simply create confusion as you listen to them.  Talking to many people to get their opinions only compounds the matter further, making us a "wave tossed on the sea."

I continued to ponder things in that moment by the bay.  The Lord reminded me that my journey in life has many similarities to that of Abraham.  Abraham was asked to move "to the land I will show you," and Abraham did.  He was asked to sacrifice his son on a mountaintop and made preparations to do so, only to have God stay his hand at the very last second before he carried it out.  It made me wonder if God might be asking me to move back to Texas to see if I'd do it, only to stop me at the last second.  Of all of my uncertainties that still existed in that moment, I was sure God would tell me what to do.

I went home that evening and talked with Amanda about things.  We both felt strongly that we needed to be in prayer about this for the remainder of the week.  God was clear on that.  So we made an agreement not to talk to each other about this for an entire week.  Instead, we would both listen and pray independently and would compare notes at a later date.  But the interesting thing out of this is that both Amanda and I felt strongly that the Lord wanted to tell me directly what He wanted us to do.  And we both had decided that we would do what He told us to do.

Meanwhile I was still stuck in the middle of the week with the knowledge that I needed to keep listening as I could, even while going back and forth between work and home that week.  The next day I woke up and read Romans 4 about "the faith of Abraham."  I cringed a bit because I remembered the previous evening where the Lord reminded me of the parallels between his life and my own.  Then I flipped back to Genesis 32 and read this:

⁹ Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my grandfather Abraham, and God of my father, Isaac—O Lord, you told me, ‘Return to your own land and to your relatives.’ And you promised me, ‘I will treat you kindly.’ ¹⁰ I am not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown to me, your servant. When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking stick. Now my household fills two large camps!

This described us.  We moved to the Pacific Northwest thinking we were going to be giving up nearly everything, and instead God blessed our family richly during our entire time in this place.  This simple reminder in that moment was a reminder that God has been with us the entire time we have lived away from our homeland.  He has never left us alone here, and this provided me more reassurance that what He was calling me to do would be the same.  He would not leave us.  In fact, He would go with us!

How to hear God in circumstances like this

You may be wondering about the actual mechanism that helped me to hear God's voice in this moment.  I'm sharing our story because I believe you will see these same patterns in your own life.  But the Bible also gives us some insight on listening to the Lord.

A theme in the Bible and a theme of this story is that God tells people what to do, the person responds by thinking about it, praying, and taking action.  Then the person becomes fearful of what happens next because God almost always only revealed the next steps and not the entire picture.  Then, the person would pray about those fears and as they are brought to the Lord He deals with them one by one, sometimes simply bringing peace, other times providing a way out.  At times the way out made sense and at other times it did not.  Judges 6 chronicles the story of Gideon, and his life follows this pattern.  Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press to hide out from his enemies, a cowardly act.  An angel appears and tells him that Israel will be rescued through Gideon.  Gideon asks for several signs to confirm that this will happen, and the Lord responds with some amazing circumstances to confirm what He has said.  Gideon then obeys the Lord, but falls into a pattern of fear and questioning each step of the way.  The Lord always answered at that time and told him what to do next. 

What should you do when you face similar circumstances?  If you are following Jesus I do believe He will intercept you at particular points in your life and ask you to do something different, something crazy, something that others may see and scoff at.  So how do you listen for His voice in those moments?  How do you recognize it?

• Daily reading of Scripture- Open the Bible each day prayerfully asking God to speak directly to you.  What you read in that moment is what He is saying to you!  This does not involve randomly opening some place in Scripture and reading that.  Instead, find some Bible reading plan that works for you.  Perhaps it is one chapter in the Old Testament and one chapter in the New Testament each day.  Perhaps it is reading in 3 or 4 places each day, or maybe just one.  There is no magic formula;  just read!  If you really want a plan on paper that you can follow, here are some ones you could try.  The point isn't necessarily that you look in particular places in the Bible.  Instead the point is that you should be regularly reading it and applying what it says to your life!  
• Prayerful reading of scripture- Once you read, pray on what you read, asking the Lord to reveal to you what He is saying in that moment to you.  If you haven't done so, consider starting a journal about your thoughts on your daily reading.  For me this has helped me to process what I think God is saying.  Journaling helps you to slow down a bit and listen more.
• Prayers while alone with God, followed by silence- This is crucial step for you and me.  It is unfortunate that prayer in church often models that we should talk endlessly at God in great and flowery detail by using "churchy" sounding words.  I have come to understand that prayer should involve me talking to God followed by moments of silence, listening to God.  It has been my experience that in those moments of silence, a thought will pop into my head, seemingly from nowhere.  Often these are scriptures I have read, which I will then open to and meditate on.  This is God speaking to you!  But you will never hear it if you talk at him endlessly.

Spend time today examining your prayer life, remembering that prayer is our time of communicating directly with God.  Prayers need no intermediary, have no filter, and impose no wall between you and the Lord.  This is about you and God only. 

If you find that your prayers have fallen into a pattern of talking at God rather than with God, go be alone with him today for a time.  If you need to, leave your phone somewhere else so you won't be distracted.  Leave your house so you can be away from people.  Go for a walk, or just go sit in a nice spot away from others.  Pray to Him, telling him what is on your mind, asking for guidance on whatever situation is bothering you now.  Then, when you feel the time is right, stop talking.  It is okay to look around if you need to, although you may find that to be distracting.  If it is, keep your eyes closed and wait, simply asking the Lord to speak and focusing yourself on Him.  Pay attention to a thought that pops up from something you have read in the Bible and see what He might say in those moments.  You may be surprised!  Remember too that God will not tell you to do something that contradicts something in the Bible.

I am praying for you as you walk with Jesus, that your walk would be closer, sweeter, more real, and more vibrant than anything you have ever experienced to date.  Remember, the Lord considers you to be very special and desires this kind of relationship with you, no matter who you are.

God Speaks to You: Hearing a Call

I have been going to church for a while now.  During my church experience I have seen pastors come and go and have gotten used to that happening.  It is just a part of church life.  However many of the pastors I have been around don't share anything about how they knew God was telling them to go somewhere else.  Usually they stand up during a service and announce that they had been "called" to go to another place, and that they are resigning, and they announce their last day at the church.  At times I wondered how they knew that God was telling them to go somewhere else.  The cynic in me said they were going to a larger church and were going to make more money, but my heart tells me that that doesn't happen each time.  I believe many pastors do hear God telling them to go somewhere else.  But how did God talk to them?  What did He say to them?  How did they know it was Him telling them to go?

With those questions in mind I plan on laying out for you how God spoke to me to tell me to leave my "boat" and move back to Humble, Texas.  I will include a lot of detail for you because the details are important.  I'm doing this so that perhaps you will be able to recognize the Lord speaking to you in your own life.  After all, He speaks to us all.  Too many Christians out there believe in their heart that God speaks only to certain people like pastors or priests.  They have never recognized God's voice in their own life so they assume He never speaks to them.  Yet the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit resides in us.  Are we really to assume that this Holy Spirit would take up residence in our bodies and NEVER say a word to us throughout our whole life?  That would be like getting married to someone and living with them for many years without any communication whatsoever.  It just doesn't add up!  There is no question that the Holy Spirit speaks to us;  the real question is this:  are we listening? 

In my experience as I've gotten to know the Lord better, He begins speaking to me through the Bible.  I wake up each day and generally read from 3 books within it just for the variety.  In March I was reading from Genesis, Ezekiel, and Romans.  I've always enjoyed doing this because I recognize the alignment in what God says in scripture.  Sometimes I'll read a prophecy from the Old Testament and then read its fulfillment in the New Testament.  In March this was no different.  I woke up on the morning of Sunday March 18 and read this passage from Ezekiel 3.

4 Then he said, “Son of man, go to the people of Israel and give them my messages. 5 I am not sending you to a foreign people whose language you cannot understand. 6 No, I am not sending you to people with strange and difficult speech. If I did, they would listen! 7 But the people of Israel won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn. 8 But look, I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are. 9 I have made your forehead as hard as the hardest rock! So don’t be afraid of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels.”

I have read this passage before and really have not thought anything of it.  However for some reason on this morning, I had this deep-seated feeling that this was God's message directly to me.  It was like reading a letter that had been written to you.  Nobody needs to tell you that the message in it is for you because...it's a letter written to you!  That's the way I felt that morning, and I even shared it with our church that morning as an encouragement to them that they needed to be reading God's word each day so that they know what He is telling them to do.  But I was uneasy.  What was the context here?  For me, did it mean some new work was going to begin in Everett?  Did it mean I would be ministering to some new people in our community, an English-speaking culture that needed a persistent hand?  Or, did it mean He wanted to send me somewhere else?  I pondered that off and on all day long.

The next day I began to get a suspicion that God was doing something wild and different and crazy.  I spoke with our pastor back in Humble, Texas and he mentioned a new position they had that he wanted me to consider.  I couldn't believe it!  In my heart my first reaction was that I shouldn't consider it.  God Himself had moved us to the Pacific Northwest, after all.  We are now well-established here, we have friends, we are deeply embedded in this community and deeply vested in it.  Things are on-track at my school and going well.  Why would God even consider moving us away from all of that?  However, I agreed to go to the Lord about it and see what He thought.  

Later that evening as I was pondering this conversation, I felt the Lord speak to me in that moment.  I sensed Him telling me that He had a message for me tomorrow morning, so I'd better pay attention.  Was the voice audible?  No, but I had certainty in my heart that no matter what I'd better pay attention to scripture the next morning as something important was about to be said.  So I woke up with great anticipation that morning and encountered this passage from Genesis 31.

 ³ Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your father and grandfather and to your relatives there, and I will be with you.”

I was shocked to read this.  I was also excited, but my first reaction was utter shock.  I think this was one of those moments where I probably stared at the floor in wonder.  Did this just happen?  Lord, is this really what you are telling me to do?  I read on to Genesis 31:13:

¹³ I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel,^[a] the place where you anointed the pillar of stone and made your vow to me. Now get ready and leave this country and return to the land of your birth.’”

  

And I continued reading in Romans 3:31:

  ³¹ Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.

So here, apparently, God was telling me exactly what He wanted me to do.  He was telling me where to go, when to go, and that I needed to have faith to truly please Him.  He told me he was sending me to a people who speak the same language I do, and that he has made me persistent so I can do what He is asking me to do.  Probably the best and most encouraging part, though, was His statement that He would be with me as I went.  Wow.

My next step after hearing this message was pretty crucial.  I did not immediately rush out to let everyone know that I had heard from the Lord.  I spoke to Amanda about it privately and we both agreed that we needed to pray on this.  One of my greatest fears at that time was that I had only invented this and that the Lord wasn't actually talking to me.  I needed to know for sure, and I'd only get that by being alone with Him, seeking him through prayer and more scripture reading.  I was absolutely convinced that if I were to do those things, He would confirm it.  So I made plans to go off to be alone with him later in the week, and I'll describe that journey in my next post.

What about you?

I want you to think about how God speaks to you for a few moments.  Yes you.  Maybe you are one of those Christians who would never voice it but who believes God doesn't speak to you.  You think you might have heard His voice but were never sure so you just disregarded it because you were not confident in your ability to hear.  Or He asked you to do something crazy and outlandish and you thought "God doesn't ask people to do stuff like that!"  You kept moving in life and things were sure and safe and secure, but you've been eaten up by the thought ever since.  Was that really Him?

Still others of you don't believe in God at all.  You are interested in a life of faith and in "spiritual" matters but haven't had any spiritual being speaking to you, or so you think.  You may remember back to times where you felt peace or "centeredness" in a particular moment but never feel like you got a specific word or direction from anyone.  Yet you are interested.  This kind of thing sounds exciting and intriguing.  This doesn't seem to be the "churchy" thing you think you know about church-going folk.

Here are a few things I have come to learn about how the Lord speaks to us, and each of these applied in this situation.

• He speaks through the Bible directly to us.
• He speaks very specifically and tells us what to do next.
• He rarely tells us what will happen after the initial command.  He expects us to follow what He told us to do and to trust Him.
• When He speaks and directs us, He promises to go with us.

As I continue to tell our story, I'll try to unpack all of these things for you as each of them are things I have experienced personally.  It is my hope that in unpacking them and giving you examples of how this applied in my own call back to Humble, you will learn to hear God in your life more and more, and that you will learn to obey what He is saying.

I'm excited to share the rest of the story with you.  And I pray that God would speak to you and take you to new, exciting, and deeper relationship with Him as we share what He has done.