Hearing His Voice When It Matters

You are probably reading this article because the title caught your eye . . . Hearing His Voice When It Matters. The title may seem like an oxymoron. Doesn’t it always matter?

Yes, but sometimes it matters more than others.

It was a time when I had returned from a long road trip. They always wiped me out, and usually it took two days to recover. I felt brain dead, just trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing.

The phone rang. Someone picked it up and the conversation was hushed. After a while, I was vaguely aware of a voice talking to me, “George, your father has had a stroke. He’s in the hospital at Bemidji.”

I sat there for a while letting it sink in. Then I said, “Well, I guess I’d better pack.”

The next morning I drove the four hours from my home in Coon Rapids, on the north side of Minneapolis, to the hospital in Bemidji four hours north. I wasn’t taking this too seriously. My Father was now 92, closing in on 93. He seemed like the iron man, who endured and overcame everything that life dealt him. At 82, he had open heart surgery. The doctor said he had the body of a 60 year old. He came out of the surgery and in a short time went back to the barnyard to take care of his beloved cows. Just last summer, when I had called him at home, his rich, deep voice came through the phone like an opera baritone. During that call, he told me that he had finished cutting all of the hay.

My Dad seemed indestructible. He would come through this stroke just fine.

The scene that greeted me when I walked into Dad’s room, was not consistent with what I thought was really happening. My mother and sister were kneeling at Dad’s bed praying, their deep grief evident in the many tears flowing down there reddened cheeks. This tragic scene had sorrow written all over it.

I saw a different scene, however. No matter what it appeared to be, I was convinced that my strong Father would beat this temporary set-back like he had beaten all of the others.

“Get up!” I said. “He can hear everything you’re saying. You have to be strong for him.” The stroke had left Dad unable to talk, although by his alert, clear blue eyes I could see he was taking everything in. He knew exactly what was happening.

But I was wrong. Dad didn’t recover. A week later he went to be with his beloved Savior, just after Lawrence Welk’s quartet sang Softly and Tenderly on the television in his room. It was one of Dad’s favorite songs.

After the funeral, when I returned home, I realized that the whole world had changed for me. Nothing seemed important. All I could think about was my beloved Dad who I could no longer have long, comforting talks with.

What was I to do, now? I felt so alone in the world.

Bunker Hills Park Reserve was located about a mile north of my house. I took my Bible and notebook and went to the reserve to find a good tree I could sit under to reflect and figure out the meaning of life once again.

Each morning I got out of bed about five a.m., bought a cup of coffee at McDonald’s and went to my Pine tree in the park that I had dubbed The LIstening Tree. Each day I stayed there until after noon. Then I went home to my office to try to get something done. This routine continued for about a month.

The notebook I always brought to the tree was filling up. What could I do, but talk to God and listen for His response? In my lingering grief, I hung on His every word.

One morning after I had been sitting in silence several hours, He said these words, “George, the time will come when you will do what I tell you to do, and you won’t care what anyone thinks.”

The words were crystal clear, as if He had written them in large letters across the sky. They scared me a little at first. Was I going to be a sort of rebel that wouldn’t listen to anyone? I had always taken very seriously everything my Pastor ever told me.

A few years earlier, I had been appointed an elder in my church, Emmanuel Christian Center, in Spring Lake Park, just ten minutes from my home. I was at least ten years younger than the other seven elders. Once we were all called to the stage so that the large congregation could see who their elders were. Afterward, a man who I didn’t know came up to me and said, “You don’t look like you belong up there among all the “grey hairs.” He meant it as a compliment.

Though I was comfortable in my skin in the position, I took comfort in the counsel of an older elder, Wes Long. It so happened that Wes also admired me for my courage in reaching out to young people and seeing them come to Jesus. There was a lot of mutual respect, and I often sought his counsel as a kind of spiritual father. I affectionately called him Daddy Wes.

We were having lunch soon after the listening tree encounter.

“Wes,” I said, “God said to me ‘George, the day will come when you will do what I tell you to do and you won’t care what anyone thinks.'”

“That’s great!” Wes exclaimed. The words seemed to thrill him to the bone.

Well, it was settled, then. It was a ringing confirmation. Wes was celebrating with me, as he would his own son, which I was in the Lord.

There, under the listening tree that day God had spoken words that would change my life forever . . . and I had heard Him when it really mattered.

God had led me off into the woods for a long time . . . to sit under the listening tree in His presence. Each day my sprit got quieter. This is why God takes people into the wilderness to be still for long periods of time. He’s getting ready to tell them something monumental and life changing. He makes you wait so that your spirit will become completely still. Then you will know that you have heard Him with every fiber of your being.

Why were these words so important? Because . . .

The fear of man brings a snare.

Proverbs 29:25 (NKJV)

I was a people pleaser, always trying to make everyone happy, and to not offend anyone. Not only is that impossible, but if you fear what people think, you will compromise what God has told you to do and weaken the power of His work on the earth.

Jesus said, “I say only what I hear the Father saying, and I do only what I have seen the Father doing (John 5:19, John 12:49).” When He did that, He made a lot of people very angry.

If you are going to be a strong and mature servant of God, you will have to develop a backbone. You must do what God tells you to do without caring what people think.

Log in next week for the next installment, posted right here.

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine