In Biblical times there were accounts of saints who actually heard the audible voice of God, such as Moses on Mt Sinai. He stood on the mountain and spoke with God. Does God still speak to His people? Out loud? I had dinner with a friend recently and he shared a joke. He said, "Maybe God still does speak to people out loud and we've locked them all up in insane asylums!" I must confess that I have never heard the audible voice of the Lord, I have however, received direction and instruction from God.

Listening for the voice of God takes patience and practice. For reasons unknown to man, God has decided to speak with His people in subtle ways. Sometimes you just "know" what He is saying. Like a voice inside your head. Other times He uses His Word to speak to you, and the words jump of the page as you read them, bringing revelation or the answer to prayer. At other times He will send a messenger, a prophet or fellow believer to speak to your circumstance. He may even use your life and the many people in it to teach you His truth. However He chooses to speak to you, be assured He does speak. And He speaks daily. Have you taken time to listen for Him? Or do you only consult Him when everything has gone wrong? Hearing God speak and knowing how to apply it to your life will take a lifetime of practicing. Even after years of walking with the Lord, we may still misinterpret His direction for us.

I have shared with you before that my family and I are adopting a baby girl. When we returned to NY after our last trip to Nashville we were informed that China was closing its' adoption program. We would not have our paperwork finished in time. I stopped to pray. What should we do? We had spent months preparing documents, visits with the social worker, money spent filing with INS. Had we been wrong? Our dream of adopting a baby from China was dying right in front of our eyes. Perhaps out timing was off. Since we had decided to move to Nashville, following our trip, perhaps this was not the right time to be adding another child to the family. We prayed and then inquired of the agency what our options were. We were told that we transfer everything to another agency and try a different country or we could wait until China opened their program again sometime in 2002. The situation was precarious because we knew that all of our paperwork would begin to expire in January of 2002. We decided we would move forward with the adoption and choose another country, after all an orphan is an orphan and we still wanted a baby.

We decided to try Guatemala. Why? They have short waiting periods ( we had begun all this about a year earlier) and you don't need to fly to bring the baby home, an escort service is available but if you did travel the stay was only three days. China was a required two weeks stay!

Almost as soon as we decided, we were assigned a beautiful baby girl. The first half of the fee was due in order to move ahead. So we applied for a home equity loan, which we would pay off when we closed on the sale of our house in NY. We proceeded with making the necessary changed in our dossier to accommodate Guatemala. This included traveling to several boroughs in NYC including Manhattan, with three children in tow. All of this was happening when we were in the midst of packing to move out of state and the Christmas Season was soon upon us. But we prevailed and had everything ready the week before Christmas. However, the loan was taking longer than had originally thought. We were reassured that there was no problem, just a lot of activity in the loan department of the bank due to the low interest rates. The loan officer was a real peach. I had brought a picture of the baby with me and she actually attached a copy to the loan application! We received word that the first payment needed to be in Guatemala by December 28 or they would have to assign the baby to another family. I quickly got on the phone to the bank and was told the loan had been denied. Seems they approve home equity loans if your house is for sale.

We were crushed. How could this happen? We had already tried every other source we knew before applying for the loan. Maybe we didn't hear from God on this after all? Maybe it was all my idea. Could that be true? We prayed. I surrendered everything. If this adoption was God's plan than He would prevail. That is His word. If it was ours it would fall to the ground. We resigned ourselves to wait and see what the morning would bring.

The following morning I received a phone call from my real estate agent. Her son was our neighbor and through the years she has become a dear friend to us. I had spoken to her the day before, telling her of our misfortune and asking when our closing date would be. She called that morning with a heavy heart. She explained that she had trouble sleeping that night. She believed that God wanted that baby girl to belong to our family. She believed this so strongly that she was willing to extend a loan to us to cover the initial adoption fee! I had the check deposited in the bank later that day and the following day it was on its' way to Guatemala.

So what happened there? You can see how easy it is to become unsure of God's plan for your life. The only solution I can see is to be surrendered, all the time. We need to hold onto everything loosely. If it is God's plan it WILL prevail. That is the only plan we want. We have questioned God's plan for our lives often especially recently with the big move and the adoption. With such big life changing decisions so closely together we doubted often. But we did trust that God would not give us more than we could handle, so we kept pressing on. I am now happy to report that our move to Nashville in early January was a success. Stress? Yes, but the hardest part is over. Our adoption plans are going forward and our new baby will be home in March ( go to btkm.org/adoption/ for pictures of our precious new daughter).

It is very often difficult to correctly discern the Lord's will for your life. If we take time to study the lives of other well known saints, like missionary William Carey or Hudson Taylor we will see that at times they too struggled with doubt and knowing God's will for their life.

Abide in the vine. Jesus said that we could do nothing apart form Him. As we abide in Jesus, we will have the assurance that our plan is His plan. If we are willing to submit all our plans to the Lord, we will have the peace that comes from knowing He holds our future.

I cannot say that I will never again question the will of God for my life. I will try to stay close to the Shepherd, so I may hear His voice. And that is my prayer for you too. May you walk in His grace. Thy kingdom come!

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