A Closer Walk: Desperate to Hear God (Part 2)

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Desperate to Hear God (Part 2)

. . . Click here to read Part 1.

I felt a calm come over me. Nothing about my situation changed, but somehow I knew everything was going to be okay.

The next day at work, I took a phone book and walked to a back office to use the phone. (This was a few years before Google and cell phones.) The only person I could think of to call, and ask, “um, how do I get back to God?” was the Senior Pastor at the large church I attended a few years before. I didn’t know him personally, nor did he know me, so I certainly don’t hold it against him, but I burst into tears when his secretary told me he could not talk to me. She offered to put me through to the College Pastor. Knowing what I know now, I should have spoken to the College Pastor. I’m sure he knew exactly how I could find my way back to God. At the time, though, I was embarrassed and didn’t think anyone else ever had this problem, so I didn’t want to talk to just anybody.

Still desperate and sad, I prayed again,

“God I don’t know anybody who can help me. Please send someone who can help me get out of this pit and back to You.”

I needed to get myself together, so I got in my car and left for my lunch break. On the way, I drove past my old high school and stopped at a red light. A group of high school students crossed in front of me on their way to the pizza place across from the school. There, in the middle of the group, I saw the leader of the Young Life group I went to when I was in high school. He walked in front of my car and I knew instantly God brought him there at the exact time I stopped at the light. It was as if God was parading him in front of me, with a neon sign over his head saying “Call him.”

Smiling, I knew God answered my prayer. “Yes Lord! That’s a great idea, I will call him!”

I didn’t know him and his wife well, and I doubted they would remember me. But I knew I had to call them, because they would know how to help me get back to God. That was what Young Life was about, telling high school students how to have a relationship with God. Surely, I wasn’t the only one who fell away from God and didn’t know how to get back. I couldn’t wait to talk to them.

I will never forget what they told me the night I met with them. After I explained my dilemma, he said, “I know what your problem is. You are trying to be a Lone Ranger Christian. You need to be with other believers. God didn’t make us to walk the Christian life by ourselves.”

They invited me to a college women’s Bible study. We met weekly and studied about spiritual gifts.Through the weeks of reading God’s Word, studying, praying and meeting with others who wanted to grow closer to God, an amazing thing happened.

I found my way back to Him.

"Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ‘I will be found by you,' declares the LORD." Jeremiah 29:12-14

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I hope you enjoyed this series on Hearing God. This was part of the month long writing challenge at write31days.com. To read the rest of the series, click the links below. If you would like to read future posts, please sign up in the upper right hand corner to receive them by email.