One spring day in 1993, I was so discouraged I didn't
know how I could go on with my work. I prayed with my wife over my anguish and
went outside for a long walk, hoping that the physical activity would renew my
spirits. It didn't. I walked back into the house and heard the telephone
ringing; the last thing I wanted to do was pick up the telephone. I usually
screen my calls by listening to the voice on the other end of the line coming
through the answering machine. The voice was that of a woman who was new to the
church. She was apologizing for calling at home, but felt there was something I
needed to know. Against my normal impulses, I picked up the telephone. She
apologized again and said, "I hope you don't think I'm crazy, but as I was
praying this morning you came to mind, along with a Bible reference I did not
know. I looked it up and have no idea if it would mean anything to you, but I
felt that somehow I would be disobedient to God if I didn't give it to you."
She apologized again and then gave me the passage. It
was Hebrews 10:35-39. She apologized once more, said good-bye, and hung up. The
passage read:
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be
richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of
God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He
who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by
faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not
of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are
saved.
Need I say that those words were meaningful to me? I
have since had them written in calligraphy and framed as a memorial to God's
faithfulness to speak when I needed a word from him and to a woman's
faithfulness to risk in obedience to God, to act on a nudge. Sometimes I wonder
in frustration why God doesn't speak to me. Does God wonder in frustration why
it is that he has spoken, and I haven't listened-because I have been too busy or
rationalistic or timid to obey?
Used with permission from Deepening Your Conversation
With God by Ben Patterson (c)1999 Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker
Book House Company. All Rights Reserved, p. 148-150.
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