“How did you know what you were supposed to do?” My 11th-grade daughter asked about my choice to be a missionary. What a loaded question. “You always seem to know what you’re supposed to do. How do you know?” She continued. The pressure was on. I had to dig deep. Finding a way to describe a whole life of listening to God’s voice in a simple sentence was daunting. How did I know?
I’m writing a book about the call of God right now. My daughter’s question was one of my “whys” for writing the book. When she asked me, as she has multiple times, “How did you know?” I thought it would be a good exercise for me to describe my experience with God’s call. In the book, I want to go beyond describing my experience. I will explain how I’ve learned to respond to His voice when I hear it.
On a need-to-know basis
Everyone will face a crossroads in life more than once. We must decide whether to respond to God’s call or follow what we think makes the most sense. Sometimes, those two roads can run together, but there are many times that they do not. This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road.
So how did I know?
What an interesting question to answer in retrospect. The answer is this: I didn’t know where the end of the road would be. I was on a “need to know” basis. I only knew what I was supposed to do sometimes, one step at a time. And that’s where learning how to trust God comes into play.
On a walk
A few years ago, my husband and I were walking near our home in Bujumbura, Burundi. At the time, our daughter was finishing 8th grade. Her schooling was done online, and the curriculum was amazing. A well-deserved shout-out goes to North Florida Christian School. However, as Andreya was growing, we recognized that she needed more.
I’m no stranger to homeschooling. All of our children have, at one point or another, benefited from it. If you have read our book, No Retreat—No Regrets: Destiny Has No Exit Strategy (yes, shameless plug for the book), you have read of many of the challenges God has led us through. He has guided us through many difficult moments. Many of these challenges were specifically about our children’s education.
We faced school closures because of civil unrest and war. We also had to change the language used to educate our kids; their schooling was in French. When the war came, we transitioned them to learning in English. Talk about having to hear from God! We were on our knees more times than we can count.
And He has proven to be faithful. He has never let us down. But learning to trust Him has been the greatest learning curve of our journey.
God’s familiar voice
So when we were on that walk together, we heard God’s familiar voice speak to us in our conversation. We knew that Andreya needed a change. It was illogical to change. We had just built a house. Our own house. But God’s unmistakable voice said it was time to go. After less than a year, we found ourselves in South Africa. Andreya is now in 11th grade, studying hard and doing well.
How did I know? How did we know? We just did. Peace filled our hearts. While we didn’t know, and still don’t fully know, what God is doing—God’s peace has met us along the way.
Stay close
To make either a small or great move, we have learned to stay close in our walk with God. You may be thinking that we should have left Burundi during those difficult days of war. We heard statements like, “What kind of parents are you? How could you expose your children to war?” We heard those kinds of words from people on the outside. We also heard them recited in our minds.
Maybe you think that we should not have moved to South Africa for Andreya’s schooling. It made no sense to have just built a home just to leave it.
But, in each situation I’ve mentioned, we prayed. We made our choices based on the peace we had in our hearts.
And so that’s how I knew, that’s how we knew that we were in the right place. God’s peace guided our every step.
This peace I’m talking about is not a feeling. It’s a deep knowing that you’re on the right track. This is when the road of what we think and what God thinks intersects and doesn’t go together.
How we know is all about Who we know
Hearing God’s voice comes in many ways. It can come as we read His word or when talking with friends. He can even speak to us through nature. He is not limited by anything. And, He has all of creation at His disposal to use when He speaks to us. Much of hearing His voice comes down to what relationship we have with Him. Are you an acquaintance, or are you a friend of God?
I recently saw a meme that said something like, “I want to be that friend who finishes their friend’s sentence.” This is how close I want to be to God. I want to know what He would say when I ask Him. He may not give me point-by-point directions, but He will tell me if I’m turning in the wrong direction. And, just like a good friend, He doesn’t hold it against me when I don’t listen. He patiently waits for me to come back to Him and ask Him if I can try again. He always says, “Yes.”
I am of when I’ll return to that conversation with my daughter. I’ll start by asking her, “Who do you know?” Because how we know is all about Who we know.
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