Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Phililppians 4:6
There was a live-in revival church in the building next to her apartment. It was the kind of place where drug addicts would live for a stint while getting their life back on track. On Wednesday nights, the choir voices traveled up the fire escape and drifted around just outside her window. On one of these nights, she turned off all the lights in her one-bedroom studio and sat by the window with her eyes closed.
"On Christ the solid rock I stand- All other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand..."
"Those are real people," she thought to herself. "There's no reason for them to fake it. They almost sound... genuine."
She just couldn't reconcile her own baggage with the suburban church she had known since childhood; full of all the rich, "big names" in town, when compared to the soulful outcry of these surviving addicts. The God she had grown up with seemed worlds apart from the God who saved her neighboring choir members from the streets.
She was shocked to suddenly realize that a question had been presented to her; from her own mind or not, she wasn't sure. The lingering question that had waken her from sleep so many nights, the unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach... these were all taking shape into a very solid and very real confrontation. The question, very simply, was this: Are you listening?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
Isaiah 55:2-3
She scoffed to herself and closed the window. "This is silly. Am I listening? Listening to what?" As soon as the thought formed in her internal monologue, she was immediately ashamed for thinking it; but just as quickly she folded the shame into herself, as if to hide it even from her other thoughts. Without undressing, she crawled into bed and fell into a fitful sleep.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8-9
In a dark space, the voices of the neighboring choir surrounded her senses in a way that sounded muffled and distant; as though they were singing just behind a heavy, felted curtain. Her focus continually sharpened and blurred in a dizzying effect, and she felt as though she were spinning.
Flash! A sudden bright scene from the past: Her parents embracing her as she stepped out of the baptismal; warm water rushing off the white robe which was far too large for her little 8-year-old body. They were all laughing joyfully.
Darkness again. The choir still in the blackness somewhere, "All other ground is sinking sand..."
Flash! Another scene from the past: She shut the door behind her and walked quickly out of the boy's dormitory with her head hung low, curling herself into her shoulders. Stopping only long enough to light a cigarette, she was sure that everyone was looking at her, and they knew what she had just done.
Darkness. The scene emerged through the cloudiness of a fog. The air, thick with red heat, echoed the sounds of something heavy being thrown and falling over an uneven surface. Woosh, flutter of pages flying through the wind, followed by, Thud! Tha-thac-thwack, thunk... She was standing on an endless stack of books, digging down into the pile with feverish hands. There was an overwhelming sense of urgency in the task; as though if she didn't find was she was looking for among the books, her time would quickly run out and this opportunity would never present itself again. But the books were thick and heavy, and as she cleared out an area, tossing large tomes over her shoulder, it felt as though she was never able to make a dent in the mound. In her bed, her body twitched and turned, her mind trapped in that moment of frustrated and endless searching, unable to escape to peaceful sleep.
The lights throbbed from bright to dim, from dim to dark, from dark to absolute blackness. Quiet. She slowly blinked herself awake, realizing that her extremities were tingling with numbness. It was there, in that ephemeral space between dream and being awake that she heard a very distinct sound. Close enough to have placed lips on her ear, a man's soft voice spoke one word: "Beloved."
This peaceful utterance jolted her awake in a sudden awareness that she was not alone in her apartment. Laying there wide-eyed and frozen, she finally convinced herself that no one was there. "It was only a dream," she told herself. "A very real and very physical dream..." Her brain settled into the idea that the voice had been her imagination, but her heart held stubbornly to something else altogether; the notion that she was, indeed, not alone.
So, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion... That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hears are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'"
Hebrews 3:7-11
Over the next week memories of her dream would creep up on her when she least expected it. Those scenes from her past, so sharply contrasted between purity and shame, replayed in her mind a thousand times a day. The frustration she had felt when digging through that pile of books was the same frustration she had been feeling about every day life; only amplified to the point of absurdity. And what of that voice she had heard? It had seemed that she was awake when she heard it, but that time right out of sleep is so difficult to interpret sometimes. The word "beloved" resounded in her heart. One thing was for certain; it had shaken her, and she knew that it hadn't been the last of... whatever this was.
"Could it have been God?" she wondered. "Is that crazy?" Her only other reference to people hearing from God, actually hearing an audible voice from God, were stories told in whispered groups of girls during over-night Bible retreats. Told in very much the same fashion as ghost stories around a camp fire, the tales often starred someone's friend-of-a-friend who heard it from someone who once heard from God.
Those stories had always struck her as fake; something flaky people claim when they wanted to look "spiritual". She remembered Bible stories from Sunday School, about God speaking directly to Moses, and appearing to people as all sorts of fantastic visions... But in her mind, these stories had been grouped together with the same stories read to her at bedtime from books with dragons, unicorns and wistful princesses on the covers.
The Lord came and stood there, calling, as at the other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" Then Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."
1 Samuel 3:10
In her usual after-work daze, she came into the apartment, opened up the little dorm-sized fridge, took out a beer, plopped down on the swiveling arm chair, and turned on the tv. It didn't take long for her to put down the beer and just stare blankly at the television. Her eyesight relaxed to the point of not seeing the images, but only letting the blocks and shapes of moving light flitter in front of her. She didn't even hear what was being said, it was all just noise. Meaningless, empty noise. She jammed the "off" button with her thumb, tossed the remote to another chair and sat in silence for a good 10 minutes.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seeds for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11
With one swift movement, she leapt from the easy chair and headed into her bedroom closet. Standing on various plastic storage containers, she reached to the back of the highest shelf and pulled out an old, banged-up cardboard box. The contents were mostly forgotten, but familiar. As she sat on the bed and sifted through the papers, she mused at the old notes from high school friends, drawings done in math class, photographs of bad hair and braces. And there, near the bottom of the box, was The Book. Loose sheets of paper fell from the pages as she opened it; sermon notes written on service programs; a large childish scrawl quoting scripture and highlighting lecture points. They seemed like artifacts from a different life, a different person. Here was a note written during the phase when she dotted all of her "i"s with happy-looking circles. "Who was that girl?" she laughed to herself.
After flipping through the gold-edged pages and feeling the weight of the book in her hands, she cleared her throat, held the book out in open palms and said aloud, "Ok, God. If that was you the other night, show me something good." She had heard this practice called "Bible Roulette" and honestly didn't think anything would come of it, but shuffled through the pages anyway, randomly opening the book and jabbing a forefinger onto the middle of the sheet before looking down to read:
God is not man, that he should lie, nor son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Numbers 23:19
Her heart melted. The passage was so much more personal and direct than she had expected. "If he's already spoken," she thought, "is he now going to act?" She shivered and put the book down. Visions of Old Testament nightmares flashed through her mind; raging floods wiping out entire cities; plagues of locusts and drought; sinners being turned to salt; unbelievers caught in a whirlwind of vengeful wrath. She knew in her heart that surely she deserved all of this and probably more.
She had not only turned away from him, ignored his constant prompting and wooing, she had denied him completely, stating that "belief in God was a condition of a weak and ignorant mind." Guilt poured over her and she buried her head in her hands. "Oh God!" she groaned, for the first time in several years meaning the phrase as a plea, as opposed to a swear.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claimed we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
1 John 1:9-10
Before drifting off to sleep that night, she prayed. Prayers unlike anything she had ever been aware of; they were not the routine, sing-songy prayers she had learned in Sunday School, they were not the overly-bold challenges to God she had yelled at the stars on some drunken nights. They were whispers, quiet and soaked in repentance; humble and pleading. She mourned the years lost to her own selfish desires. She wept at the memories of all the times he had wooed her and she dismissed him. She prayed until she fell asleep... and she slept peacefully through the whole night.
For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us, and we acknowledge our iniquities.
Isaiah 59:12
The next morning found her in rare form. She smiled at the sunlight coming through her window, waking before her alarm sounded. "This," she confirmed to herself, "is a new day." There was a certain lightness in her step as she threw a scarf around her neck and headed down the sidewalk to the corner coffee shop. Standing just outside the revival church was an older man handing out flyers. Most people walking by ignored him and his outstretched hand. But he didn't seem to mind; he was singing! Dressed in an array of thrift store collections, his soulful voice rang over the sidewalks, across streets, down the blocks. "Glory, glory hallelujah!" he sang. She smiled as she passed him and locked eyes for a moment as she took a flyer. He bowed his head to her without missing a beat. She assumed that he was with the revival church, that the flyer may be some invitation to a charity event or requesting donations. But as she plodded down the sidewalk toward her morning coffee, she read in hand-written block letters only one sentence:
Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing!
Psalm 100:2
She laughed to herself and smiled up to the sky before digging some old verses out of her memory. Stepping into the coffee shop, she sang just above a whisper, "His truth is marching on..."
Weeks passed. Every night she prayed for more dreams. Every night she pleaded to God to hear more of his audible voice. And every night, she heard nothing. The original warm glow of that praise-filled day had died down, and now she was seeking out of desperation. She tried to get into the word again, but just didn't know where to start. Bible Roulette never quite had the impact it did that first time. (She kept landing on verses that talked about how Jewish men should or shouldn't shave their beards, or long lists of impossible to pronounce names of who begat whom.)
She quickly sank back into her old routine of bitterness and eventually prayed less and less as the quiet, dreamless nights went by. One evening, as she drove home from work, she realized that she was actually dreading going back to her empty apartment. Suddenly feeling abandoned and ignored, she cried out, "Where are you, God?!" Not hearing an immediate response, she drew back into her dark mood and drove along the highway in silence.
As she crested a hill, the road dipped down in front of her, widening the horizon. Her view of the sky all at once burst open with an explosion of orange and purple. Thick, bulbous clouds, pregnant with humidity, dropped low in the sky, catching a thin white light outline from the disappearing sun. Bare branches of trees were silhouetted sharply against the glowing background and everything seemed to have a clarity and brilliance that felt almost foreign and unreal. The whole spectrum of colors burned and blended together so perfectly that her eyes widened and she sucked in a quick breath with, "Oh!" Her eyes couldn't take it all in quick enough, so she let her heart do most of the absorbing. Suddenly a gate was opened somewhere and a warm flood of Living Water came crashing into her spirit with an enormity and fierceness that jolted her to the awareness of the moment.
How could she be struck by colors in the sky in such a powerful way without being vividly aware of his presence? Here it was, the voice she had been yearning for; shouting from the heavens, shouting in the heavens... No! Shouting the heavens! Speaking the sky! A voice saying, "I am magnificent! I am bigger than you could ever imagine! I hold all things in my hands... and I love you."
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19
Jessica Wolf 2008
