“It wasn’t like Jesus said something really specific to me” she told me, sitting Indian style on my couch. “It was more like suddenly, I just knew. There was a change in my heart.”
Sometimes we make it seem like Jesus speaks to us over a loudspeaker or sends us a tweet. I say it a lot. God told me to do this or God said this to me about you. But what does that really look like? What does it really sound like to hear His voice?
There’s no certain answer or certain formula to this question. But I can tell you this. It’s a little magical and a little practical. Part mystical and part methodical.
It happened to me a few weeks before we left Peru. I was sitting in Church and someone came to me and told me that God had told them something for me. A message from Him just for my life. She said “Don’t just take my word for it. Check and test what I’m going to say, but I feel like God is saying that you don’t have to look for a job when you get back to the states. I feel like He wants you to know that someone is going to come to you and offer you a job.” It was just as simple as that. I thanked her and scribbled it down in my journal and forgot about it after a few hours.
Chris and I had been talking about how moving back to the USA was just as scary as it was when we originally moved to Peru. Our organization would totally flip flop and instead of supporting us as missionaries in Peru, we knew God was leading us to put all of the funds put back into our mission projects and partnerships. Our word for this year is “Foundation” and God is showing us how to build a strong foundation for our organization in Peru, Brazil, and also the USA. That meant that instead of donations going toward our groceries they would now go toward the rent that our church in Brazil has to pay and the video that we are making for The Lily and The Sparrow and the sponsorship families in our Peru program.
It meant that once again, we would have to trust God to provide for us miraculously.
And so I took comfort in the words that were spoken to me at Church. I was reminded that God sees me and He knows my every need. He is working behind the scenes and always preparing the way for me and for you.
One month later we were in the United States and trusting God to provide for us as we put every penny of our donations back into The Lily and The Sparrow’s missions. We were literally in a situation where either God had to come through for us or there was no other option.
Have you ever been in that place? The one where you have no other options. No way out. The place where God comes through or bust. I’ve been there so many times that it’s become a familiar rhythm in my life.
The day Jubilee was born in Peru.
The month we rented our apartment (in faith) without the funds.
The moment we first looked at each other and were brave enough to say the words “Freedom House” out loud.
So many other moments just like these.
And no matter how many times God comes through for us, each new time is still even more exhilarating than the last. Our nerves are still on edge and our hearts still pound, but our souls are filled with just a little more peace and a little less fear than last time. We are changing little by little. We are becoming more like the Creator of peace itself. We are made in His image.
And we hear His voice.
I heard it through a sweet friend that was brave enough to listen in her heart for God’s voice and come tell me what He said. I heard it through my husband who encouraged me not to be afraid. I heard it through the pages of the Bible that I read every morning. And through Lauren Daigle’s newest song that I love. And through the sticky note taped to the bathroom mirror at school.
God is always talking to us in whispers. We just have to open our eyes to see. Hearing God’s voice isn’t some crazy loud speaker experience (at least not for me, yet!) Hearing God’s voice is like following a trail of clues or putting together a puzzle sometimes. And sometimes it’s as simple as opening the Bible because it is a love story written just for us. We can always hear His voice from the words on its pages. Sometimes hearing from God happens through the lyrics of a song or the words of a poet. Sometimes He speaks through someone’s prayers or a secret message delivered by a friend. He created us all to be creative. He created the people who write the songs and the poets who write the poems. He created our minds and our hearts and our voices. And the Bible says that we are His hands and feet. We can be His voice if we abide in Him. We can speak and bring life into any situation.
It wasn’t until I was at a meeting that almost didn’t happen, sitting across from a professor at Georgia Southern, that I remembered the words my friend spoke to me in Peru. It wasn’t until that professor asked me if I could start working at the University in exchange for a stipend and fully paid tuition that I remembered her voice telling me that God wanted me to know that I wouldn’t have to look for a job. I would be offered one. I called Chris to ask him if it was the right choice for us and he told me that just 30 minutes before my call, God had interrupted His thoughts with a phrase. The phrase was “Don’t worry about finances. I’m about to provide for you in ways you can’t imagine.”
And so I said yes to being a Teaching Assistant at Georgia Southern.
A job that gives me a scholarship of fully paid tuition for not one, but two Master’s Degrees.
A job that pays a stipend that covers my university fees, books, and gas to drive to school.
And Chris got hired as the Youth Pastor of House of Worship.
The Church that prayed over us and sent us to Peru more than 2 years ago.
The Church and people that have been our biggest supporters throughout our time in ministry.
The very first Church that partnered with the The Lily and The Sparrow to reach the nations.
My Mother-and-Father-in-Love let us live in their empty rental property. (no bills)
My Mama and Chris’ Mamaw keep Jubilee on the days that I can’t (for free)
All of The Lily and The Sparrow’s monthly support goes to missions. This month we were able to help pay rent at our adopted church in Brazil for the first time.
Because when you trust in God’s plan, it is always so much more incredible than you can imagine. When you listen for His voice, you will hear it because He is always trying to catch your attention.
In 2013, I wanted to go to graduate school but I moved to Peru because I felt like God was leading me to do that. 3 years later, my husband and I have founded a missions organization, lived in Peru for 2 years, are doing missions in 2 countries, and have a baby girl who was born in Peru! Do you think that back in 2013 when I was a Spanish student just considering moving to Peru for “maybe, possibly, 1 year” that I would have ever even dreamed of being where I am today? No way! Honestly, I would have probably been way too scared and run the other way!
But I got here by listening for God’s voice. By reading His word. By asking Him every morning to show me how he was talking to me that day. By hearing a love song played by a street musician in Peru and venturing to believe that it was a love song that God was having played just for me. By reading a billboard that said “dreams come true” and knowing that God had me take that road, on that day, and look up just at that moment, so that I would receive that message from Him.
I want every single step that I take to be the one that God has for me. I want to hear is voice for my decisions and my choices. I want to know what He has to say about my life even in the smallest things. I want 2016 to be marked by obedience. I want to do exactly what God has for me to do because life with Him is incomparable.
It starts with hearing His voice.
Do you hear Him, dear one? Are you reading this with a steady heart and a knowing smile? Do you recognize this story because it’s as familiar as many that you hold in your own heart? Or do you read this and feel like it’s strange and foreign? Listen to me. The most important thing you will ever do is live in relationship with God. He is speaking to you, He is calling your name. Ask Him to open up your eyes and show you how He’s speaking to you. Don’t dismiss the song you absolutely love that keeps playing on the radio as coincidence instead of God trying to get your attention. I love the fact that in the Hebrew language, the word coincidence doesn’t even exist.
Maybe the song is a coincidence. Maybe my friend in Peru telling me that someone would offer me a job and then someone actually offering me a job that I didn’t even apply for or plan for, and a job for which the deadlines for application had already passed, was a mere coincidence.
But, beloved, I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe that God is doing things with purpose. I believe that you can hear from Him if you really want to. And I want this for you so badly. I want you to have a relationship with the King of Kings. I want you to know the feeling of childlike joy and the release that comes from putting everything in God’s hands and watching as He comes through for you again and again.
Because there is no other feeling in the world like that one. The words I would need to describe the deep and perfect love that you experience as a child of God don’t even exist. It is something that happens in the spirit, the soul, the heart. Something that transcends normal speech and understanding. Something that the mind can’t wrap itself around but that the spirit embraces.
It’s what the Psalmists tried to put into words when they wrote “For who in the skies above can compare with the LORD? Who is like the LORD among the heavenly beings?” in Psalm 89:6 and “Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God?” in Psalm 77:16. It’s what they wanted to record in the manuscripts with praises like the one in Psalm 86:8 that says “For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?”
Open your heart to Him and listen for His voice. There is nothing else like it in the entire world.
With messy hair and wild grace,
Ellyn
