This month, I have been working through The Art of Listening Prayer by Seth Barnes. I’ve often felt frustrated these past few months because I haven’t felt like I am hearing God’s voice as clearly as many of my squadmates.
But, here is the thing: God’s relationship with each one of us is personal. He doesn’t talk with each one of us the same way because our relationships are unique. He is a personal God, therefore his love for us and the ways He speaks to us are personal.
So, I need to stop getting caught up in comparison.
As explained in The Art of Listening Prayer, God speaks to us in a variety of ways. In addition to hearing Him audibly and inwardly, we hear Him thorough scripture, others, impressions, dreams, visions, demonstrations of power, and surprising means (like a burning bush). But, we also hear Him through circumstances and events, and that is how I heard Him this last week.
Last Tuesday, I picked up my laundry from the women who we bring our laundry to around the corner.
It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that I realized that my squad shirt was missing.
Earlier that day, we had said goodbye to one of our squadmates, so I found myself fixated on the lost shirt to take my mind away from the separation.
I had all but given up hope that evening after I tried to ask the women if they had seen the shirt and they told me they had never seen it.
While it felt trivial, I felt the need to pray for my shirt with my teammates that night.
And, the next afternoon, as I stopped with another teammate to drop off her laundry, I was surprised when one of the women excitedly showed me my shirt hanging by her register.
Later in the week, my pair of shorts blew off the roof while we were out doing ministry. I searched the surrounding area, and they were nowhere to be found.
Assuming they had been claimed by one of the boys who run around our neighborhood, I asked our host the next morning if there was a market nearby where I could pick up a new pair.
She asked, “are they the ones on the bike?” and proceeded to bring me my shorts that she had picked up off the ground the day before.
I could have easily replaced both my shirt and shorts, but God used their return to show me that He sees me and He cares for me—even in the little things.
So, as we head into a new season with potential team changes on the horizon, God has been giving me peace because He sees me and cares for me.
I see this in lost and found clothing, in unexpected free time when I’m feeling spent, and the sunrises that He paints for me each morning:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” – Matt. 6:25-27
