How Does God Speak to You?

This is how God has been speaking to me lately.

Example 1:
As I may have alluded to before, the morning is not my most joyous part of the day. It usually takes me a good hour before full sentences start rolling out and I am able to pop my first sincere smile. It's unfortunate, I know. It's also something I am continually working on. Coffee speeds up the process by about thirty minutes :)

A short while ago I had one of 'those' mornings. Nothing seemed to be going right, we were running late, I had the morning headache, and my grumpy meter was hitting eleven. It's sad, but usually my wife is forced to put up with my lack of positive in these times. After a big sigh of sluggish morning frustration, something happened. The last thing I would have expected to resolve my mood. Normally my wonderful wife lovingly reveals my actions, or I am able to shake it off after a while. But this time, neither of these things happened.

God knew in that moment that there was only one message he wanted me to have--help others by showing them love. At that moment, out of no where, my seventeen month old walks up to me, and gives me a hug. Usually these hugs last less than three seconds. This time, she grabbed on and did not let go for two minutes. I didn't ask her to, Mama didn't ask her to, she wasn't prompted. She just did it. God was speaking to me in that moment. Instant joy, and humility.

Example 2:
Months ago I learned of this international awards show for the UCMVA called the Unity Awards. They were coming to Canada and I was excited! However, it was two days too late. The submissions had closed two days before, so I just wrote it off for this year. Fast forward several months, hundreds of poopy diapers and many full-cafe coffees... I get a phone call from the organizer of this same awards show, four days before it was to take place. She said, "Did you know that you were nominated in three categories for awards?". I said, "No, that's interesting because I wasn't able to submit...". She went on to say, "Well, someone nominated you , and we'd like to bring you out to Calgary to perform at the awards show."

In that moment God was telling me to pay attention to this. I can't tell you yet all of the fruits and blessings from that awards show (other than that I won two awards), but God is definitely working on something for me.

Example 3:
For years and years I have stressed about money. Always having enough, what to do with it, what if I make a wrong choice... A lot of decisions in life revolved around the financial impact.  It was a particular stressful time of life when hard choices needed to be made about what to do with our money, so I flipped through the bible to find a random passage (I love it when this happens)--I opened to Luke 12: 16-20:

16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.

17He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'


18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

It seemed pretty clear to me. We are still very conscious of money and finances and we as a married couple plan what we have carefully. However, we've learned that if God is calling us to do something, He'll provide the finances in one way or another.

Example 4:
About a year ago we spiritually adopted another child, Mariana from Columbia. She spawned a stirring in our hearts as a family to look beyond ourselves and our own life. She challenges us to remember. To remember that not everyone is as blessed as we've been with finances, with health, with certain freedoms, with education, with loved ones.

Her pictures drawn for us with love, while primary, tell us so much. Her letters from the other side of the world give us great joy, the joy she shares with us. Her ministry to us as a family is a huge blessing. That is God speaking to me and to our family.

HOW DOES GOD SPEAK TO YOU? Let's hear your story.