The Voice of God

God teaches me more and more how to hear Him. Sometimes I think that our work in Asia has been one big lesson in listening. Let me share what I mean:


I'll start at the beginning. I've felt called to missions most of my life (since before I was a Christian, if you can believe that), but there was a specific call for Enoch and me to join Tony and Cindy Brewer in Asia during this trip. The first time God spoke to me about joining the Brewers is when Tony publicly announced that he would be leaving for Asia. The announcement was during a service of sorts, and at the end of the service Tony asked all attending to take some time to listen, seeking God as to what sort of involvement we were to have in Tony's work. I listened, and God spoke. He said, "Go, go, go now, go." I was ecstatic.

Fast-forward several months of praying and seeking God. God confirmed the call to both of us again and again. But it is so funny--you know how you wonder how people like the Israelites turn their backs on God after experiencing miracle after miracle? Well, I'm just like them. After a while, discouragement sat in and I began to wonder if I had ever heard God to start with. One morning on our way to work, I said to Enoch, "Maybe I was wrong, maybe I didn't really hear God." Just then, a car passed us...and you wouldn't believe what was on the license plate--it said "Go Now Go", the very words God had spoken to me months before.

So in the summer of 2008 we departed for Asia, eager to do His work. We were blessed beyond measure...then we ran out of money and had to return to the US. Since then we've been in KY, doing our best to continue some of the work via the computer and raising money for our return.

Recently, God confirmed to each of us separately, without the other knowing about it, that He wants us to go ahead and purchase the tickets for our return flight. During the past few weeks, we've been praying about the date of return. Now I'm going to tell on myself again--I didn't really expect for Him to give us an exact date; I didn't even ask Him. I don't know...maybe somewhere deep down I didn't belive that He did that sort of thing.... But Enoch, faithful, trusting Enoch, believed God could and would and listened for just that.

So several days ago, Enoch asks me the date of his sister Kristin's birthday. I didn't know and asked why. Enoch's reply was that God told him we will be leaving on that day.

Well, I didn't really know what to do with that. Honestly, I didn't think much of it--I didn't even try to find out the date of her birthday...until Sunday. Christmas is in a few days, so Sunday's text was out of Luke. We were reading a passage about Anna, who served in the temple until she was 84. About that time, Enoch got out his calendar and started counting days. It just didn't click with me what on earth he might be doing. He leaned over and whispered that we really needed to find out the date of Kristin's birthday.

I was pretty curious, so when we were alone after the service I asked what happened. While we had been reading the text about Anna, God spoke to Enoch that we would be leaving in 84 days. By now you've read enough about me to know that I'm not the most believing of characters, so I felt (but didn't say) that it sure would be strange for God to use a totally unrelated verse out of the Bible to give us a date; I doubted that the two things Enoch had heard would match up. I counted myself, and 84 days from Sunday is March 15th of 2009. I thought Kristin's birthday was in April; Enoch wasn't sure. So Sunday evening I finally asked my mother-in-law what I should have, in faith, asked her days ago. To my amazement, she said that Kristin's birthday is, in fact, March 15th!

The bottom line is, God is always speaking (and He'll use whatever He wants to to communicate with us); the trick--for me, anyhow--is learning to listen.