The Living Word: How to hear God’s voice
BY LEORA SCHMIDT
thelivingword@mail.com
Her minister, Pavel Goia, described her as having a solar-powered ability to talk endlessly. She came to him with her concern about her prayer life, explaining that she prayed and prayed and didn’t seem to hear anything from God. Her pastor reminded her that prayer is the breath of the soul, that breathing out was only part of the process. Breathing in is just as important, and that is the part of listening. He reminded her that the Bible says, ’Be still and know that I am God.’ “After we talk to God, we must listen for Him to respond,” he reminded her. So she promised her pastor to discipline herself to listen, besides so easily and voluminously expressing herself to God in prayer.
About six weeks later she came to her pastor with a report. She recounted that at first, in her quiet time she heard nothing, but she persisted. In the last few days she had a strong sense that kept growing in intensity that God was calling her to start a community services center that would provide necessities for the poor. Her pastor applauded her. She went to the church board at her very small church of 30 elderly people attending, to seek their blessing and support. They viewed it as an impossible task. They had no resources, nor vision, nor did anyone feel impressed to assist her. So she returned to the pastor, saying, “God impressed me with this thought, ‘You’ll never reach this town until you learn to love people.’ You told me how to pray and I need now to take action. I’m not going to the community alone. You must come with me. Let’s meet on Thursday at 9 a.m. to go door to door.”
Thus it was that Thursday after Thursday they doggedly spent three hours knocking on doors of homes and businesses for six months with no encouraging response. They covered their town and the adjoining town with no success. With perseverance and strong conviction, the lady persisted, “We must knock on all those doors a second time.” Finally, the owner of a failed business agreed to an affordable price for his empty building. They joyfully signed the contract. Before the pastor could get on his motorcycle to return home, his phone rang. The person calling was from another closed store, “You have a building now. Do you need shelving? You can have all you want for free. I want to be part of this blessing.” And so it evolved. Everyone in town knew of the project. Why wouldn’t they? They had been contacted twice. Shelves needed to be filled. Pastors from the various churches said they wanted to be involved in the blessing and gathered clothing until the shelves were full.
Then Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. From this little warehouse truckloads went weekly to those needing assistance in the Gulf Coast. After this the government asked them to distribute food stamps. Then the prison director asked if they would help transition prisoners into civil life--give them a job for six months, teach them how to live responsibly, give them Bible studies. Now they had a supply of workers. Their contributed provisions overflowed the small building and they stored some clothes on the outside in the snow. Observing this, the neighboring businessman on one side opened part of his shop for storage because he was not needing all that space for his shrinking business. A few months later, the businessman on the other side called and offered space. He said that the original businessman was thriving like never before from opening up his shop for storage, and he wanted to share in that blessing by opening part of his shop for storage.
People called and asked for prayer, saying that they felt cared for, and could trust these people who shared with them so lovingly. Prayer meeting on Wednesday night overflowed. The pastor of another church asked if they would conduct prayer meeting in his church on Tuesday nights.
A whole town, and people far beyond, were blessed and brought closer to the Lord because one woman prayed, listened to God, and persevered in following through on His divine leading. (For the full story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-55kdE-ZmYo&t=338s Pavel Goia)
What might God do if each of us reading this account would pray, then wait and listen for God to lead us into His path of service and blessing to others?