Listen for the Blessing

When I was young, my parents used to use rewards as a way to entice my sister and me to do things. If we behaved well at the doctors, we would get a stick of gum or _if we did well in school we would get to pick out a toy from Toys R Us. Classic example, if we were members of the “clean plate club” at dinner, we got to have dessert. My parents loved to reward us for good behavior. They also loved to surprise us with little things.

When my sister and I went to camp, my parents would hide notes and little gifts in our luggage. When we went to school, they would hide notes of encouragement in our lunches. They did these little things simply because they love us and wanted our day to be a little brighter.

When it comes to our heavenly father, his form of blessing comes in different ways. Hearing God can be difficult. God is not like a parent who comes in your room and loudly declares that it needs to be clean. He doesn’t speak to us in the ways we speak to one another, which makes it easy to miss His voice. One of the biggest obstacles in our relationship with God is being able to communicate with Him, and by this I mean the listening part. God does not communicate with each person the same way which can make it difficult to know if you are lining yourself up for His blessings.

One of our youth students, Samantha Hoffman, has been practicing listening to God’s voice. At camp in February, she felt God telling her to use her voice. On Tuesday, February 18, Samantha heard Him again, this time telling her to pray specifically for the corona virus at 2:50 pm on Thursday, February 20. She heard God tell her to invite her friends to do so too. This prayer request became a text chain sent out by dozens of people who then prayed for healing of the corona virus that Thursday afternoon. It is so amazing to know that our students are intent on listening to God’s voice and being obedient. Samantha’s obedience blessed so many people. There was huge wave of prayer across the globe, making people stop to pray rather than panicking over sickness. This created a real opportunity for change.

- Pastor Many VanHolsbeck