A Single Word

A Single Word

I asked, and He answered.

God is more accessible than you might think. But how does communication start? How do you really know it’s God?

In my last blog, I encouraged you to write down three unresolved questions you’ve had on your heart. Then ask God for one word, a word that serves as a key, unlocking understanding and wisdom. A word that can encourage you or bring instruction. A word (if negative in connotation) that can reveal the needling angle of the enemy. It can start—with just a word.

“The Lord God has given Me the tongue of disciples,

That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.

He awakens Me morning by morning,

He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.”

—Isaiah 50:4 (NASB)

So after I made this suggestion to you, I took one of my own questions to God. Here’s what happened…Continue reading

The Silence of God

The Silence of God

I asked my husband if our son had recovered from a bad cold.

“Didn’t you hear me?” His voice sounded kind. “You asked me earlier, and I said ‘Yes.’”

“I must’ve been thinking about three different things at the same time,” I said. “Sorry.”

Original MixmasterMy mind has been noisy lately. Too much going on…countless things to take care of …many concerns tainted with worry…an eight-lane highway of racing thoughts. I try to sit still with God in the mornings, but I haven’t been hearing much. On the other hand, I haven’t been saying much either.

Distraction is a part of feeling silence with God. I’m restless inside. Lists start to form, creating a need to pounce on the day. But something else is needling me.

There are things I’ve prayed about for years—even decades—that haven’t changed for the better. “I don’t know how to pray about this anymore, God…” A seed of disillusionment gets sown.

It’s not disappointment with God. I believe with deep conviction that His heart is good. He can be trusted, no matter what.

Rather, I don’t know how to participate with God through prayer when what He’s doing is far beyond what I understand. I pray, ask, plead, and contend for things—as I see it—but it might just be my agenda to fix things.

Maybe God is waiting for me to run out of words.

Are you done yet, Susan? His tone isn’t antagonistic.

“I guess so. I don’t know what to say.” Prayerlessness feels like such a dreadful sin.

Just be quiet with Me.

IMG_0335I got up at first light and opened the front door. The world outside was still. No cars on the road yet. Snowflakes floated down, making the most beautiful soft tapping sound on the fall leaves. A blanket of white covered the landscape as far as the eye could see.

I am making all things new. He said, pausing to let the words stick. You’ll see…

imagesMy eyes teared up. “But Lord…Continue reading

From Trickles to Waterfalls

From Trickles to Waterfalls

She still remembered what she saw as tiny toddler.

“I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not blot out. If we have once seen, the day is ours.”

Many of you have heard of Helen Keller. Born in 1880, she was a normal and happy little girl from a small Alabama town. She could see and hear perfectly.

Helen as a girlHowever, before she turned two, the high fevers associated with meningitis made her blind and deaf. The sudden darkness and silence felt utterly nightmarish. She clung to her mother’s dress and had many tantrums from confusion and despair.

Months would pass.

Eventually she started to understand what was going on, using her hands to touch every object. She learned small ways to communicate: shaking her head for “no,” or nodding for “yes.”

A pull meant “come,” and a push meant “go.” If she wanted her mother to make ice cream for dinner, she’d shiver and point to the freezer. Still, she remained frustrated and disconnected from the world at large. It felt like being on a ship, lost in fog with no compass. She later wrote that the wordless cry of her soul was, “Light, give me light!”

Helen and Annie

Young Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan

Years would pass before the answer came.

From her autobiography, she noted…

“The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Sullivan, came to me. The light of love shone on me in that very hour.”

For what was about to happen was a miracle.

 

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