God Speaks Directly to Me
At one point early in my life as a Christian I wondered if the Lord would possibly speak directly to me about something, beyond His general revelation of His will for everyone in the Scriptures, and in addition to ‘indirect’ ways of discerning His will about something through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the opening and closing of doors of opportunity and other circumstances which He arranges, and the wise counsel of trusted friends.
My opportunity to test this question came one week at Camp Judson, at which my brother Bob was Director, when he asked me if I would teach his Young Adult Sunday School class for him the following Sunday morning at their small country church. I said “Ok, what’s the topic?” He said it could be any topic.
So I decided to pray and ask the Lord to directly speak to me somehow about what the topic for that class should be. Not knowing what would happen, I prayed and suddenly the words “Colossians 3:16” came into my mind. I knew this was the ‘address’ of a verse in the Bible, but had no idea what it said. I looked it up in my Bible, but it didn’t seem to point to any particular topic I should teach. I didn’t know what to think about my experiment. So I figured we would just have an open discussion about whatever the class wanted to discuss.
When Sunday came there were only 3-4 people at the classroom when it was time to start. While we were waiting for others to come, one of the students asked me to teach them a new song which I had recently learned at another church. So we sang that song, and then some new other songs I had learned, and some they already knew. No one else ever came, so we spent the entire time singing and talking about the song lyrics.
It was only later as I re-read Colossians 3:16 that I realized we had been doing just what it said, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”!
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Many years later, in 1997, in our ministry to Penn State international students, I found myself feeling the need for a similar direct word from the Lord. That summer I learned that the PSU International Programs office would be radically changing the August Orientation schedule for newly-arriving international students. The result would be a weekend in the middle of the Orientation time with many of the new students living in temporary housing but with no scheduled activities. At that time each August I had been coordinating with the folks of our church to provide a welcome dinner at the church for 25-30 new students. But I immediately realized that the schedule change would provide the opportunity for a much larger event, on-campus, to welcome many more of the new students. But that would also require involvement by lots more people from many churches. I was the only one on ICF’s staff at that time, so I alone had to decide if a bigger event to bless more students was the Lord’s will. Did I have the faith to trust the Lord for that?
I felt I needed some extra assurance from the Lord to go ahead. Once again I asked Him to speak directly to me in some way, and immediately the words “Psalm 36:8” came into my mind. Not knowing what that verse said, I looked for it and read it: In a context of reflecting on God’s love, David writes, “They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.”! To me it was assurance that the Lord would have us bless these sojourners in our midst, and He would provide all that was needed to do that. So it happened that we held a picnic on campus every August for many years, including free food and drinks, and a variety of indoor and outdoor games, with as many as 300 new students attending, and 200 hosts from as many as 15 churches working together to make it happen!
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I am ashamed and regret that I also need to include here the account of another time when the Lord spoke to me so directly. Many years ago I was attracted somewhat to pornography. One time I brought a sexually-explicit magazine into our house. I felt guilty about that, but did it anyway. That night I had a restless night of sleep, and I woke with the words “Nehemiah 13:5….13: 8” loudly echoing in my mind. I was afraid to read those passages, though I had no idea what they said. I found that they were a reference to Nehemiah’s reforms after the people of Israel returned from their exile in Babylon. Specifically, at one point when Nehemiah was away, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the Temple. He was closely associated with Tobiah (an Ammonite who was an enemy of the returning Jews and who worked against Nehemiah’s reforms), and he had provided Tobiah with a large room in the Temple formerly used to store the offerings and various things used in the Temple worship. When Nehemiah returned, he “was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room.” I knew the Lord was warning me that the pornography had to be removed or it would scar my mind and soul, so I got rid of it.
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For me, these times of the Lord directly speaking to me have been very special in expressing His patience with me, His love for me and for the world, and His call for us to be pure as He is holy and pure. They are also a reminder that the words of the Bible are the Word of God in the words of the human authors through whom He spoke. He knows each verse and how to use it, because He wrote it!
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