IT’S A RELATIONSHIP, NOT A FORMULA
About a week ago, I read a message from a friend telling me
about some of the healing patches she uses. In the middle of her message, she
included one sentence that seemed a bit out of place with the context of the
rest: “Speaking in tongues also clears my ears.” But it sparked my mind,
and a week later, God used it to heal me.
One morning, I was in a hurry and quickly grabbed my pajama
bottoms and threw them in the washer with the rest of my laundry. Unfortunately,
my phone was in the pocket, and it wasn’t until I went to put the laundry in
the dryer that I heard a clunking in the washing machine and found my phone at
the bottom of the tub! Bummer!! I tried putting it in rice and then drying it
with the hair dryer, but neither worked. When I went to get a new phone, it
turned out that they couldn’t put my old SIM card into the new one. Now, what do
I do?
I bought a new phone but knew I’d lost all my contact
numbers. I wanted to keep my old phone number, so I called the company. I tried
talking to one of the customer service people, but it was frustrating because I
couldn’t understand their English, and they were talking really fast. It took a
while, and finally I got the message: I couldn’t get my old number back until I
first put a service plan on the new phone. So, after being on the phone for
about 30 minutes, I still had procedures to go through to get everything going.
I went back to the store and got a new service plan. But then
I had to call the phone company to put the service plan on the new phone and
change the new phone’s number to the one I had on the old phone. Once again, I
got a customer service person whose English I could barely understand. At this
point, I would have ordinarily asked to speak to a supervisor. Still, after
explaining my situation twice, I really didn’t want to go through all that again,
so I stayed on the line and annoyed the customer service person by asking her
to repeat, repeat, repeat. She was very patient, and after an hour on the
phone, I finally got what I needed. However….
I had to lie down because I had a huge headache. You know
those clamps you use to fix a garden hose? You cut the hose, put the clamp on,
and tighten it with a screwdriver. Well, that’s what I felt like I had on my
head—a giant clamp, squeezing and pinching my head tighter and tighter. And then
it came to me: that out-of-place sentence from my friend’s message: “Speaking
in tongues also clears my ears.”
Instantly, I
knew that it was God using that sentence from a friend to make the headache
disappear, so I rehearsed in my mind how speaking in tongues is perfect prayer,
from Romans 8:26-27: “Likewise the
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as
we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth
what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for
the saints according to the will of God.”
And I
also knew from Isaiah 28:11-12 that speaking in tongues is perfect peace and
rest: “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this
people. To whom he said, ‘This is the rest wherewith ye may
cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing.” I pondered for
a few minutes on these two wonderful characteristics of speaking in tongues, perfect
prayer and perfect peace. I fell asleep, and 30 minutes later, when I woke up,
I felt no pain. My head was perfectly fine, and I was refreshed.
I believe
God talks to us all the time. He’s our Father, not a mere formula we apply at
will to aggrandize us as human beings. He’s given us many practical
instructions in His Word that we practice, practice, and practice. But as we
continue faithfully seeking Him and His ways, we grow up in Christ to see our Father
with our spiritual eyes, communicating with us in just about everything.
It wasn’t
random or coincidence that my friend wrote what she did, and I caught it a week
before I really needed it. God was working in her to write it, and He worked in
me to hear His word through her writing. Then, when I needed it, God nudged me,
and I remembered what was said, believed it, pondered it, and was healed.
Our Father,
God, works in the body of Christ through His people to get His answers, His
healings, and His deliverance to us. God’s voice is hearable if we only pay
attention. We yield to Him in even the smallest details, and they become some
of the biggest blessings.
Thank you,
Judith B., for hearing and sending the message. And thank you, Wendy P., for
the plaque you gave many years ago, with the poem about those seemingly “little
things.”
Love,
Carolyn
BIBLE LESSONS IN NATURE is
out now in paperback and Kindle. I think you’ll really like it 😊
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