Hiding His Words

Hiding His Words
And Letting God Speak
by Audra Johnson

5:57 a.m. Three minutes before that hideous grating screech of an alarm was due to inform me my day had begun. Normally I'd be a little cranky about losing those three beloved minutes of precious sleep, but on this particular day, I had no problem with it, for two reasons. One, I was currently camping out on a cold, hard living room floor due to a visit from a surprise houseguest, and two, I was taken aback by the very first, literal waking thought in my head.

"Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me." (John 14:1)

Like most people, I usually wake up with a song running through my head, or maybe some random line from a movie or TV show, which repeats over and over again until I turn on that same radio or TV in the exasperated hope of flushing it out. But that day, I opened my eyes and this verse greeted me . . .and completely caught me off guard.

"Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me."

Was it some kind of coincidence that the very reason I slept on the floor was the reason my heart was, in fact, quite troubled? The unexpected family visit inadvertently stirred still waters, bringing to the surface a tremendous amount of ugly family drama I wasn't wanting to face at that moment.

"Let not your heart be troubled."

I'm not sure what touched me more - the appropriateness of the verse, or the clarity with which God spoke to me.

I recently joined a Sunday morning "small group Bible study" at church. Our spring series is taking us through Henry Blackaby's "Experiencing God" study. It has been great getting back to the basics, but it's kind of funny when the discussion questions yield moments upon moments of awkward silences followed by the traditional hesitant "Sunday School" answers.

". . .Pray?" ". . .Read your Bible?" ". . .Jesus? God? The Holy . . .Spirit?"

Recently the question was asked, "How does God speak to us, and how do we know it's really Him?" I have to admit, most of us were kind of thrown by that one. Not really the easiest question to answer, is it? The truth is, He uses lots of methods to communicate with His children, but a lot of it is up to us!

My morning John 14:1 wake-up call made me realize how important it is to get back to the basics sometimes. A lot of times we say the Lord speaks to us through the Bible . . . appropriately called His Word. What kind of image does this conjure up? When I was really young, I would literally open up the Bible, flip through the pages, stop, and point. Whatever words peeked out from beneath my finger were obviously the words God wanted to "speak" to me. (This provided some very interesting results!)

But this morning, on the cold, hard living room floor in the middle of familial turmoil and heartache, God spoke. "Let not your heart be troubled, believe . . ."

I hadn't read nor reflected on that verse in a long time . . . but I did remember it. I remembered memorizing it with my high school accountability team. I remember a lovely wooden plaque my grandmother had given me with the verse etched on it.

God spoke to me through His Word without my even reaching for my Bible that morning. It was through no merit of my own, but I realized hours later that in order for the Lord to speak it to me in that powerful way, it was my responsibility to have hidden it in my heart for His use. (Psalm 119:11)

This is all so obvious, I know - read, memorize, meditate, reflect on the word of God . . . give Him the opportunity to talk to you! But I had never seen that as sharply as I did this week. How incredible would it be to learn the thousands and thousands of love statements He's provided us with and knowing that every time one comes to mind, it's literally a message from Heaven, a talk with my Savior?

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