I stared at the woman in front of me. She stared back. Her brown eyes glittered with hope, expectation, and a trace of apprehension. I shifted my weight as a bead of sweat crawled across my forehead like a spider. I was stuck in the middle of an exercise that had quickly become uncomfortable.
I had really been enjoying the class on learning how to hear God’s voice. I had grown a lot and it seemed that the time it took to tune in to the voice of God was getting shorter. With the success I’d been experiencing my confidence and boldness had grown as the messages God gave me for others in the class became longer and more specific.
But this night was different. This night I stared at a blank canvas waiting for words that never appeared. I was supposed to listen for God and then speak what I felt He was saying but the problem was that He wasn’t speaking. On top of that we were up front where the ordeal was on full display.
I twirled the band on my ring finger and hear a trail of voices flow through my head. Make something up. You can’t fail up here in front of everyone. You look like an idiot. COME ON!
The pressure to manufacture a performance was a bag of bricks on my shoulders. Somehow I held my tongue. Maybe because it felt like it’d tripled in size and I feared if I opened my mouth I might just slobber all over her. I was just about to stutter some kind of apology when I heard it, love.
My heart grew wings and I waited for the rest of the message. It never came. What else God? What’s the rest? I can’t just tell her love. Love what? No answer.
I decided that one word was better than nothing. “So, uh I just have one word.”
She nodded and tilted her head at the same time. “The word is love. That’s all I heard.”
Her eyes went to the ceiling as the gears in her head moved and turned the word. Then I felt movement to my right as someone stepped up to deliver the rest of the message. I stood in awe as the words of God flowed out of my classmate and into the woman. It was all centered on love.
Afterwards I asked the Lord about the encounter. Why couldn’t I hear Him? Why had it been so hard? The answer deeply impacted me and still does today. He told me that one of the hardest things to learn is to be silent when there are no words. Speaking one word, when that’s all there is, can be just as difficult.
There is something lying within us that shrieks and bucks in situations like this. It causes panic to run through us like ice water. I think it’s a recipe of nonsense. 1 part pride with 1 part fear of man. Add a dose of religion and that person is going to have their socks blessed right off their feet.
Any power the enemy has over us comes from his ability to get us to believe the lies he spoon feeds us (2 Cor 4:4). Some of the lies I’ve believed in situations like this are the responsibility for this persons success or failure rests on my shoulders, if I don’t perform I’m a failure, if I don’t come up with something great everyone is going to think I’m a fraud, and one word is not enough to impact someone’s life let alone complete silence.
But perhaps this is an issue that comes back to a question of identity. If my identity has been solidified in the truth that I am a child of God and that all of my worth and values resides in the great love He’s poured out on me, then I could stand silent in front of someone all day with no intense desire to manufacture something for the pleasure of the audience or myself.
But if my identity clings to the gift, then I will strive to make it a success however I can. In the latter my worth and value ebbs and flows with the success of the gift. In the former my worth and value is as constant and unchanging as His everlasting, perfect love (Jer. 31:3).
I’m convinced that Satan does his best to show us a very small world. So often the decisions and choices and even beliefs are formed by the immediate world around us. Though Paul instructs us to focus on what is unseen (as that is what is everlasting) many of us live out our lives virtually unaware of the invisible with the exception of a handful of encounters and experiences (2 Cor. 4:18). This tends to lead us toward the conclusion that if we can see it, feel it, touch it, and experience it it’s good. If we can’t it lacks value or significance.
But God doesn’t look through the same lens. His view, while so close and intimate to our individual lives, is so much bigger. He see’s what we don’t. While we look at the person in front of us and wonder how it’s possible that one single word could make an impact, He sees that one word hit and work and churn through their heart. He watches the impact of that one word as the person leaves and applies it to their life. He rejoices as that one word leads that individual to seek a deeper relationship with Him. His heart is full as He meets that person in the intimacy He’s longed for.
While we often don’t connect the dots beyond our scope, God is busy drawing lines all over the world. He can even make deep and life-changing impacts on others through our willingness to be silent.
The courage to be silent or to only speak one word is found in His unchanging, overwhelming, perfect love (1 John 4:18).
Blessings,
Click here and catch a sneak peak of my brand new upcoming fiction book, Finding Home.
Jesse and Kara Birkey
http://www.facebook.com/jesse.birkey
http://www.amazon.com/author/jessebirkey
Jesse and Kara Birkey are committed lovers of Jesus who seek to show others the extraordinary life of Jesus is available for everyone. They have authored two books, been featured in films and seek to serve the Lord in whatever ways they can. Follow their blog here.
Bring Jesse and Kara to your venue. Find more information here.
Life Resurrected, Extraordinary Miracles through Ordinary People has been endorsed by Sid Roth and Mark Virkler and is a collection of inspiring stories making it clear that the extraordinary life of Jesus is available to all who love Him. It’s also the testimony of Jesse’s life, the road he travelled bringing him into the arms of Jesus. Get the paperback here. Get the Kindle Version Here. View the trailer here.
Marriage What’s the Point? One couple finds meaning in a crazy mess is the story of their marriage—The tragedy and the restoration. They bear their hearts in an attempt to get others to bear theirs and finally receive the freedom they’ve longed for. Get the paperback here. Get the Kindle Version Here.
Jesse is also featured in the film DeadRaiser, a movie shining the spotlight on resurrection testimonies across the nation. Find more information here.
Add new comment