Category Archives: Hearing from God

It’s very simple.

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Nelson.Our son Nelson just arrived home from 5 months of travel through Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, following God’s lead and listening to his instructions. I’ve been keeping up with him through his blog (www.NelsonNyman.com). His recent post was too good not to share with you, so below is the second half of it, slightly edited.

Nelson has always been candid about his life, even the “bad” parts, and the story he tells is evidence that God skillfully uses all of it, whenever we’re willing.

He wrote this on one of his last nights in Thailand while attending a global missions conference in Chiang Mai:

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I was sitting on the roof of the guesthouse taking a few minutes to process the day, when a man came out of his room and sat down next to me. He set down his pint of whiskey and initiated a conversation.

“Where are you from? Where have you been? Where are you going next? What are you doing in Thailand? Is [YWAM] a Christian organization? Are you a Christian?” The questions usually follow the same line until that point.

“Yes, I’m a Christian. Are you?”

A few people aren’t happy with this question, some are indifferent, and some say they’re Christians, too. This guy told me he thought it was great and that he was also a Christian.

“How is your relationship with God?” I asked. It’s interesting to hear how people answer that.

“Relationship?”

“Yea. Do you talk to God? Does he talk back? And what about Jesus?”

This guy had a gentle demeanor, and asked, “What does it mean to talk with God? How many requests can you ask for in your prayers? Is 2 too many?”

I told him how God reached out to me through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and freed me of belligerent, out-of-control drinking nearly 7 years ago.

“Seven years?!” he said, looking shocked. “No drinking that whole time?”

“Yup.”

“Impossible.”

“Totally possible.”

Eventually, he told me booze was destroying his life, that he wanted to quit, and that he knew God had sent me to him. I told him there were AA meetings in Chiang Mai and that I’d take him to one, if he wanted. He agreed, took a huge tag off his bottle, stood up, and went back to his room.

I’d never been to an AA meeting in Chiang Mai but got online and sure enough, there were lots.

The next day, the guy wasn’t interested. Surprise, surprise.

Chiang Mai Alcoholics Anonymous Clubhouse

But then the thought hit me, “Why don’t you go? It sure couldn’t hurt.” So I did. And sure enough, there were all these alcoholics in an old-school, 1940‘s-style room, slamming coffee, reading from AA literature:

“Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.”

After being reminded of that, I thought about it a lot. AA is a fellowship with a common vision. Christians are, too.

God reaches out to people any way he wants. He always meets us where we are, whether at an AA meeting, on a roof with a stranger, or attending an international Christian conference. In any and all places, he offers the solution to the problem of sin. And when he does, he wants all of us to reach out to others.

So it’s much simpler than I make it. Instead of asking what I can do for God, I should just remember what he’s already done for me, and simply give that away.

“…Freely you have received; freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)

 

 

Heartache Headquarters

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Yesterday we left the biblical Peter on an all-night fishing trip aching to be with Jesus, not sure it would ever happen again. After a miserable night of fishing failure (and probably confusion over what he would do with his future), all of a sudden his greatest longing materialized on the beach – a wonderfully familiar voice calling across the water to him!

Jesus calls to the men

Could it be? Did he dare hope? When their fishing net miraculously filled with fish, he knew, and from the core of his heart the ache exploded into fervent glee. It was so overpowering he threw himself into the sea, swimming wildly toward shore and his beloved Friend. Peter no longer cared about the monster-sized catch of fish, his boat, the other men, or anything other than the Person on the beach.

This is one of those scriptural moments when I envision Jesus throwing his head back and laughing as he watched Peter thrash through the water toward him. Did they embrace when he got there, wet man and dry man?

Jesus had been almost playful the way he’d surprised the men with that net of fish. And it wasn’t lost on them that he worked a second wonder when the strained net didn’t rip.

The whole scene must have been punctuated with shouts of happiness as the men encircled Jesus and reveled in the rich satisfaction of being with him again. Proverbs 13:19 says, “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul,” a truth written all over these disciples on that day.

As I studied this passage, God asked me a question: “Margaret, do you long to see Jesus as much as Peter did?”

“Sure!” my heart answered. “Of course!”

Missing Nate

But then came his second question: “As much as you long to see Nate?”

“Well,” I thought, avoiding the answer, “when my heart aches to see Nate again, the longing will never be satisfied on earth as it was for those disciples. So of course I’m excited about seeing him in heaven.”

On and on my mental reasoning went. “I miss the daily companionship of my husband, the one I knew so well. I miss our conversations and his counsel. I miss him coming home at night, and I miss our I-love-you’s. The thought of one day having him back in all those ways sometimes makes me ache to see him.”

The more I thought about it, though, the more I knew something was amiss in my heartache-headquarters. That’s when God asked his last question: “Do you think you could get to know Jesus even better than you knew Nate?”

It was important to think about that, and in my deepest heart, even deeper-down than my sometimes-ache for Nate, I knew that if I made an effort to get to know Jesus better than ever before, the end-result would be a Peter-esque longing for him that would be unmatched by any other… even my longing for Nate.

“Grow in the…. knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

Dream a Little Dream

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Some of us have had our dreams come true, and many have had dreams that haven’t. A few of those unrealized dreams have been secrets, hopes we quietly nurtured without telling anyone. When it became clear those dreams had died, we suffered in silence, since no one knew.

Other dashed dreams are shared with others because they can’t be hidden: a pink slip at work, an abandoned home, a soldier without a limb, a divorced couple. Yet nothing discourages us from dreaming.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if our dreams are coming or going. Maybe they’re doing both. As Pastor Colin Smith says, “The home where you live is yours for a time. The work that you do is yours for a time. The people you love are yours for a time. One day, your home will be lived in by others. One day, your work will be continued by others. One day, your money will belong to others.”

Dreams.

Even in our dreaming we need to remember that old adage, “The only constant is change.” Nurturing dreams is probably a good thing, though, as long as we keep them in a proper perspective. Do we absolutely have to have a dream fulfilled before we can be happy? Or do we hold it lightly and tell the Lord, “It’s really up to you.” And then, after a dream comes true but eventually goes through a change, do we erupt in anger?

Some of us have dreamed of future scenarios that, had we been given them, might have been our undoing. Looking backwards, we see that and are thankful God prevented them from coming true.

So how are we to dream with wisdom? I think the only sure-fire way is to do it through questions. Questions addressed to God:

“My heart desires such-and-such, Lord, but is this something you want for me?” Or, “All I can think about is x-y-z, but if you want me to fill my mind with something other than that, would you please let me know what it is?” Or, “I’ve earmarked my bank account for this-or-that, but did you have a different idea for that money?”

I believe God is honored when we ask him questions, as long as we open our “ears to hear” his responses and then heed them. I also believe he will definitely respond, which is where dreaming-wisdom comes in. If one of our dreams is realized because God is behind it, we can be sure it’ll be every bit as satisfying as we’d hoped. But if it’s something we want that he doesn’t think is good for us, we can be sure the uphill battle we fight to make it happen won’t deliver the pleasure-pay-off we thought it would.

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3:20, The Message)