Listen and Obey

I have been mostly just blogging about books I have read. I want to share a story that gets at the heart of "Listening to and Obeying" God. 

I took a walk this morning with the three passages I have been poring over the last few days and hope to just keep meditating on throughout the coming weeks.

While on the walk, I got a call at 6:55 am from a distressed friend. She is someone I have been intensely involved with over the last eight months in some difficult things that have been happening in her life. When I hung up, my heart was heavy, but I decided to just "listen and obey," and God told me that He would do the fighting for her while I kept silent (Exodus 14:14). As much as I would love to intervene on her behalf, I have not been given that open door, and He made it clear I was not to pound it down. He also said, she would be "A OK." He also reiterated what He told me last week about this situation, "I bless the friend who just stands by." So, I am standing by and standing in the gap for her in prayer.  I rested in these things and was overwhelmed by a sense of peace. 

As I rounded the corner of the school yard, deep in listening prayer, God said, “Look up!” I looked up, and there was an Asian girl in the distance clutching her baby and watching her 20 month old.

God said, “She is Thai.”

I said, “But she is not from the people you have called me to reach out to. I will smile and talk to her cute daughter.”

God said, “Go to her.”

I struck up a conversation (do not remember what I said first), and I asked her where she was from. She said, "Bangkok, Thailand." (God was right!) Since I lived in Bangkok for 3 months it was a nice thing to converse about. I found out she moved here 1 ½ years ago from another US city (her whole family immigrated there from Thailand 10 years ago), and she does not like being in a small town. She has had a hard time making friends because people are always coming and going here. She is begging her husband to find another job in a bigger city. 

Then, God reminded me of Sandy’s International Mom and Baby Class. She lit up and was SO EXCITED!

Then, I told her that God told me to look up, that she was Thai, and that He wanted me to talk to her. She lit up again, and said, “Oh that is going to make me cry!”

I went home and introduced this lovely woman to Sandy over email. 

The simplicity of listening and obeying and loving my neighbor as myself.