I think if you asked me, what is the thing you learned most on the mission field, I would have to say I have learned how to hear God's voice. Even just writing this makes me want to tear up, because for years I used to say I struggled with hearing the voice of God. In high school, it was a really big insecurity for me: how do I make life decisions if I can’t hear God’s voice? Yet in the past 6 months, God has been taking me on a journey of learning to hear His voice. I think in reality, God was speaking to me the whole time, I just kept ignoring Him, or saying that it was just me. I could hear the voice of God, I didn't know how to recognize it. And when I did, I didn't know how to obey it. In the past months, as I shared before in a previous post, God has been teaching me how to boldly step out in faith and do whatever He called me to do, no matter how crazy. The more I have done it, the more I have learned to hear His voice.
I want to share a recent but simple example with you. The other night I came home from a long day of rehearsal and began to make dinner. I was going to leave the next day for a trip, so I needed to pack and get ready, plus I had a zoom meeting to join, so I had no extra time. In spite of that, I felt God telling me to go outside and walk around my neighborhood. I argued for a little bit—I have no time, why would I do that, etc. It didn’t make sense. But in the past few weeks, God has been impressing on me very strongly through various sources that He doesn’t call me to understand. He calls me to obey. There are no Scriptures that talk about understanding God or what He is doing. In fact, the Bible actually says that God’s ways are “past finding out” and “who can give counsel to the Lord?”. We are called to obey, especially when it doesn’t make sense. That is faith. So even though I had no time, I walked out my door.
I walked around the corner, asking God “Ok why am I here? Who should I talk to?”. I noticed three ladies sitting on a bench, and I felt God telling me to go over and ask to pray for them. So I did, and of course, since I live in a very friendly and talkative culture, immediately they invited me to sit down with them and chat. It turns out, one of the ladies is the mother of my landlord! This was a big blessing to me, because I had actually met her once before, almost a year earlier, but had unintentionally been very culturally rude. My landlord and his mom had come over to visit me and my roommate, but we were stressed and busy at the time and our house was a mess, so we told them now was not a good time. Our landlord has lived in America before, so he was not offended, so I didn’t realize how culturally rude that was until much later. Now, looking back, I realized that I had closed a door (literally and figuratively) to my landlords’ family. I had been wanting to fix that but didn’t have the time or ability. So now, here I am, meeting with him mom again and having a chance to reopen the door that I had closed. At the end of the conversation, she even invited me over to their house for dinner one evening. It was such a simple thing, but because I listened to God and stepped out of my house for 15 minutes, even when it didn’t make sense, God was able to do something simple for his kingdom through me.
Friends, I have a lot of stories like that, listening to God’s nudges and seeing Him do small little miracles. A woman who tears up when I asked to pray for her. A friendship started because I started a conversation with a random person on public transport. An opportunity to share about Jesus’s love because I stayed a little longer at the waterfront and didn’t go home when I wanted to.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not some super human Christian. Far from it. In fact, I have said no to God so many times. I still struggle with so much fear! Many times when I feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit it is a battle in my mind with my flesh. But some of the times that I have said yes, I have seen God do really cool things. And even when nothing seems to happen, when I seemed to have listened and obeyed with no result, I know that my ability to listen to God is growing.
Because I have noticed, as I listen and obey, my ability to hear God’s voice, feel his nudges, be sensitive to His promptings only grows. The more you listen and obey, the more you hear.