Tag Archives: hearing God

Calls to Serve

10 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by in Christian service

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My last blog, posted October 25, was on obeying God’s direction to serve even when we don’t understand. You might want to read When We Have an Assignment to Serve before reading this one.

Some assignments are so clear, you simply cannot miss them. Others may be subtle little nudges that can go easily unnoticed. They seem small, happen quickly, and are easily passed by.

I email daily prayer needs to our church family. As I was preparing an email Tuesday of this week, it occurred to me that I should do a little more than I was doing. I should close out the email with scriptures relative to the needs. I added one for healing and another for comfort.

Early that evening I received a call from someone who receives my emails. She began with I’ve had a miracle happen! She has a chronic disease that sometimes flares and causes a great deal of pain. She had been out for the day when it hit and she rushed home, not knowing where this flare was taking her. She sat on the side of her bed, growing weaker and pain progressing. She was trying to decide whether she should go to the emergency room. She reached over for her cell phone and scrolled through emails and pulled up the prayer list for the day. Her eyes fell on the healing scripture below the names and needs and she read it aloud: LORD, my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me (Psalms 30:2). Immediately the pain left. Completely. She felt new strength coursing through her body. She said to me, I promise you, that is exactly how it happened. I called out for help using that scripture and I was instantly healed!

This is what I mean by listening for our assignments. Only God knew that something as simple as a scripture added to my email would be exactly what someone was going to need later in the day. Only He knew that it would become someone’s personal prayer.

This was a whisper of the Holy Spirit that I could have easily ignored and never thought about again. I confess I didn’t think about it being God’s voice at the time. But you see, He is always talking to us and we have to realize and honor that. If it is in our mind to do something and it lines up with scripture, then we can count on it being from God.

I think I know what led me to this particular assignment. I had awakened that morning with the sad memory of a physician friend who had taken his life. He was an exceptionally compassionate physician. I never knew another quite like him. Always available, always patient, always deeply caring. A treatment he had given a patient resulted in her death and he was never able to emotionally recover. What cut me the deepest as I remembered was that in all our conversations, we never talked about faith and eternal life.

So, this week I have reminded myself that the time to witness is NOW. I urge you, that if you see an opportunity, and feel a nudge to do something that witnesses and brings glory to God, go forward and do that thing. NOW.

Heed instruction and be wise. And do not neglect it. –Proverbs 8:33

The Lord will guide you always. –Isaiah 58:11

When We Have an Assignment to Serve

25 Tuesday Oct 2022

Posted by in Christianity, Serving

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“If any of us would receive an assignment for Christian service, it must come from Christ Himself. If we hope to succeed in that assignment, we must do so while in perpetual, personal fellowship with Christ . . . and never stop working until He Himself comes to discharge us from the service because there is no further need of it. ” –Charles Spurgeon

I am reading Spurgeon’s book, Following Christ, and the words above immediately caused me to pause and reflect. I have known different service assignments to be directed by God. They have appeared in different ways, many of which didn’t make sense to me at the time. On most occasions, I received an answer sometime later.

The most dramatic assignment I was ever given was with a young man who had lost his mother in a horrendous way. I didn’t know the family well, yet for whatever reason, I was plucked out of the midst of family, friends, and acquaintances and placed solidly in Ben’s life for a year or more. I questioned this many times. I spoke with a friend who advised me to let go and back out of his life. I prayed fervently, even asking God to release me because I thought perhaps my friend was right. Maybe I was in a place I didn’t belong. Yet God answered each prayer with a fresh assignment of what I was to do. Even when I felt the most anxious, God would find a way to tell me I was indeed hearing from Him and to continue on; He would direct my path.  Then, just as specifically and dramatically as the assignment came, I was discharged. As Spurgeon said in his quote, “there was no further need of it.”

Most of the assignments I’ve been given weren’t as clear and detailed as the one with the young man. I reflect on ways that God has saved me and blessed me when I felt no sure direction at the time other than to stay still and wait on God. I was terribly burdened by a life situation once and was told by a very godly woman that God would not have me continue in it. I respected her advice but responded until God gave me the peace to do something differently; I had to continue as I was. Only a few years later, I realized that if I had not continued on, I would have suffered terribly from the consequences. I learned we can’t rely on our mortal feelings. However, we can trust that God will kindly show us His direction in a way we can’t deny.

I encourage you to listen to your calls to serve others. Some situations may seem odd, but trust God and move at His direction. Press in and listen for guidance. He may or may not reveal the purpose for some assignments, but I know this much: I have never been sorry when I responded as I believed God directed. Looking back, I have always been grateful.

Hearing from God

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in communication with God, communion with God

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When the Spirit does not open the Scripture,

the Scripture is not understood even though it is read.

–Martin Luther

The Amplified Bible says that Selah (often used in the Psalms) means “to pause and calmly think about what you’ve read.” When we do this, we digest the words and their message, rather than move across them in rote fashion. Practicing Selah adds richness to our time with God. We go beyond a discipline and linger with Him while pondering. We allow nourishment to flow into our souls.

The intention of scripture is to reveal the Lord and teach us His ways. It should be a matter of reverence for us each time we read God’s word, for we are opening communication with our Maker. To hear, we must keep still and pay attention to what is being said.

When God’s word has our full attention, we will hear. An unfamiliar scripture may suddenly have a particular word for us, maybe one of encouragement or explanation of a trial we are going through. A recognizable passage may show us something we haven’t seen before, some broader way of thinking. That is the Holy Spirit in action! He is speaking to our hearts, our needs. And that is when we need to practice Selah. To take time to ponder God’s teaching moments and ask what is He saying that applies to us in a very specific way. I treasure these times and like to note the date and maybe a few words beside the scripture. On seeing this later, I may or may not recall why it helped me that day, but the one thing I will remember is that it was an intimate moment with God.

That same kind of intervention of the Holy Spirit can come through Bible teachers. Dr. Charles Stanley says it this way: What we hear from teachers will be different because the Holy Spirit gives us what we need to hear. Isn’t that wonder-filled?  That God is not just able to speak to each of us individually, but that He desire it? I recall the time a pastor visited and I told him how much I appreciated something he had said from the pulpit. He asked what that was and after hearing it, he shook his head and said he didn’t remember it at all, but he got this feedback often–different people taking away different things from his messages. It is evidence of the Holy Spirit moving over us to bless us just as we need.

God doesn’t give us this personal attention without divine purpose, however. He does it that we may be in relationship with Him. R. C. Sproul, in The Holiness of God, said The call to holiness was first given to Adam and Eve. This was the original assignment of the human race. We were created to shine forth to the world the holiness of God. This was the chief end of man, the very reason for our existence.

In a society of self-centered people, it is sobering and necessary to remember that it really isn’t “all about us” and never will be. It is about Almighty God and our relationship with Him. It is about submission and obedience so that we may experience the love of God in the abundant ways He has planned.

Let me leave you with these words of John Wesley:

To candid, reasonable men,

I’m not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. 

I have thought, I’m a creature of a day,

passing through life as an arrow through the air.

I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: 

Just hovering over the great gulf;

til a few moments hence, I am no more seen;

I drop into an unchangeable eternity. 

I want to know one thing – the way to heaven;

how to land safe on that happy shore. 

God himself has condescended to teach the way;

for this very end He came from heaven.

He hath written it down in a book, O give me that book! 

At any price, give me the Book of God.