Shut up and listen. The deaf man hears.
At 5:24 pm last Sunday God did something crazy-cool, and let me be a part of one of his miracles. A man that had been deaf his entire life was healed and could hear for the first time. But, this didn’t happen through my prayer alone. Instead it happened because I did something different. I did something that anyone that knows me knows is not my usual way. …….I SHUT UP. I LISTENED.
No, that is not the miracle that I am writing about today, although, it is a testament to the power of God, as I do enjoy talking. I have been taken into a season of more silence that has been just as enjoyable. This allowed me to do two things last Sunday:
1. Shut up!
2. Listen!
Here’s how God worked through that…
When we boarded a school bus circa de 1970, I sat next to my teammate, Sierra who is notoriously listening to her music, so I knew that my talking wouldn’t be heard, and that I needed the silence from myself as well. At that point I got out my iPhone, newly equipped with two more versions of the Bible in the trusty YouVersion app, to see what the word had for me today. Yet, the app could only provide one single scripture for me.
Say what? I was looking forward to exploring, but this Mathew 6 business will do just fine. So on I read, ““Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”” (Matthew 6:1, 5, 7, 8 ESV) At the time, it wasn’t anything especially significant, but I remained silent and soon was being transferred to a much more crowded bus.
“Andele!” One man shouted, as the first bus pulled away and my group was literally pushed into the doors of the already packed bus. Once on, another man motioned for me to put my backpack above, but did not speak. Assuming that he wasn’t talking because he presumed that I did not speak much Spanish, I responded in Spanish and told him I would rather keep it on me, but he continued to point and gesture. At this point, the bus was so full that my butt was definitely in uncomfortable proximity to someone’s face, while some of us found a spot to sit on the stairway to the bus. All the while, a second (non-talking) conductor hung out the open doorway at 50MPH. Two men sitting behind me (likely sick of having both my backpack and backside in their faces) had offered up their seats, one of which moved to a makeshift seat between the actual seats and the window, but I declined their generous offers.
Then God intervened. The second conductor motioned for the man to move closer to the window, onto a bucket so that I may have a seat. Since it was clear from our first attempt at communication that this conductor either couldn’t hear or refused to listen to me, I had no choice but to take the seat. Once comfortably seated, I started to listen. It wasn’t the noise of chaos on the bus that filled my ears, but the noise of the Holy Spirit reflecting on the scripture I had read, taking me into listening prayer and clearing my mind of all the junk that the world attempts to fill it with. For 20 minutes I sat. For 20 minutes I listened. For 20 minutes I nodded at my teammates as they talked and I listened solely to God. For 20 minutes I journaled.
Then I looked over to notice that my teammates that were previously seated on the steps of the bus had also been seated in my row. At the far right, was Tayo, a woman of God that I’m convinced lives every second in prayer. To my immediate right, sat Susan, daughter of the King who is eager and willing to learn all that her mighty father has for her. When I spotted a man’s hand on Tayo’s cell phone, I stared and told Susan “I’m watching Tayo… Not sure what’s happening.” Susan agreed, with an apprehensive worrisome tone. To which I noticed that it was the hand of the second conductor and that Tayo was simply communicating through showing him her words on the screen, and he was writing responses.
Knowing Tayo, and the fact that she will likely pray for anyone she meets for any reason she can find, I proclaimed, “this man’s about to talk!” Susan said, “what, Lauren I think he’s deaf” and I told her, “either way, he’s about to get healed!” And bowed my head in short prayer for the man.
I prayed, and listened. God responded. Here is my exact journal entry from His response:
“We can ask these things full in prayerful faith we can believe it in faith but he must believe it. Matt 6 says all the things we ask are not for man but for God, that God knows our prayer before we even ask it. Yet God also has told us that we do not have because we do not ask. For both of these reasons: the deaf man must also ask and believe in faith that it will be done. “
I looked up to see that Tayo was now asking him if she could pray for him at this point. He agreed that it was ok, and I stayed in prayer, asking God how we can show him that there is something to have faith in. At that point God gave me physical evidence on the perfectly sunny day that he had given me once before.
When preparing for the Race I prayed in question of how I would communicate God’s power to the child in a 3rd world country who hasn’t had food in a month. Thinking back to the songs I learned as a child, I was reminded of one with hand motions “our God is an awesome God who Reigns from heaven above….” And asked God how to communicate the type of reigning power He has when clearly the hand Motion is that of the weather raining, and just then in that prayer back in August on a 85F day, it started pouring down rain. God was giving me the physical evidence answer to that prayer; that its not my job to communicate all this, but only to tell the world, and let God be God, to let God do the work, to let God rain to show his reigning power.
Now on the bus, on this beautiful day, it started POURING down rain! My journal entry continues at this moment….
“God wants to be God. We need to let God have His perfect work in him reigning down from heaven. Raining down from heaven.”
Now God has my attention. The conductor is busy working, and motions he needs to complete a task before prayer, turns his back and my complete attention is drawn to the back of his shirt where a logo from a smaller label based in my hometown is placed in the center… A gear with the words “Made in Detroit” has my eyes captive. As quite possibly the proudest Detroiter in Nicaragua, I am alive with wonder of the fact that this logo has made it to the t-shirt of this man that I have been praying over. And it all makes sense. As God answers, my journal entry continues to say that God is working…
“Working like a gear works perfectly in a motor, working in his heart God has his perfect ways fitting like the gear on the back of the mans shirt. God has placed us so that he may be witness of us in prayer so that he may believe in faith for the perfect healing. So that he may hear God not just in his heart or mind but so that he may hear the evidences of God in the world through the hearing in his ears. So that he may hear the laughter of a child and the song of a bird and the noise of the engine. The “thank you” from his customers. So that he may have a voice not just for himself but for God so that he may then be a witness to the world of the perfect ways of God.”
It’s now time to pray. I reach out my arm, as my teammates lay their hands on him and we pray together in one-voice prayer. The man’s eyes closed, Tayo’s hands on his warm ears. I pray for his faith. For God’s perfect timing to be now. For complete hearing…. After closing, Tayo asks if he can hear, and he responds after hearing her question, “SI!”
At this point, the childish men behind him were laughing at him for the way he looked with three American women laying hands in prayer. Then the bus pulled up into hundreds of birds! Just as I had written! I have never seen or heard this many birds in my life, and he grinned as he clearly heard them too! He was healed! And the bus engine revved up behind me as we pulled away from the stop with birds to our final destination where he had heard another passenger say something about taking our bags, and clearly told my team to stay seated with our belongings on us until all others had exited. He then had the bus pull up more and told us it was now safe to get off. We walked to the taxi station and I turned. He was walking safely behind us to ensure we made it okay. He then disappeared into the distance, and we began negotiations with the taxis who were vying for our American dinero. Just then, Jose reappeared and stated the price we would pay, and saved us a ton of money. When we thanked him, he responded for us to please not thank him but to thank only God. The final pre-determined thing was the “thank you” from his customer, and God made it happen! Jose can hear today for the first time in his life, and I can clearly hear God in my season of silence.
Xoxo
“And we shouldn’t need to keep teaching about baptisms or about the laying on of hands or about people being raised from death and the future judgment. Let’s grow up, if God is willing.” (Hebrews 6:2, 3 CEVDCUS06)
“Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.” (Jeremiah 8:14 KJV)
Rain drops on the window. Confirmation!
The logo on his shirt. Made in Detroit
View of the crowded bus.
Jose speaking to the taxi drivers.
