Lesson #4: What You Have Known Will Probably Be Recycled

#4: What You Have Known Will Probably Be Recycled

During my medical meltdown, when I was “out,” I heard God speak to me in terms I was already familiar with. I think he often speaks to us in contexts we have known previously. With me, it came in the form of a line I had in a play in high school many years before. I played the role of the doctor in The Miracle Worker. As the curtain rose and the spot came on, I was leaning over the crib of the infant Helen Keller. With a stethoscope over my shoulders I said to her parents in an Alabama accent, “Don’t worry, she’ll live.”

Clinically Dead

Then there I was, 25 years later in an operating room. I found myself looking down upon my lifeless body that was devoid of blood. I looked as white and pale as the hospital sheets I was surrounded with. I later found out I was clinically dead during this exact time for a number of minutes. Strangely, though I was clinically dead, I was able to see what was going on. I could hear what was taking place in the operating bay.

In the midst of all of this, I heard a Voice. I knew this was the Almighty speaking. How so? It sounded like many speaking at once–men, women, children in unison. The Scriptures refer to God’s voice as being like the sound of many waters. That was what I heard—the rushing of strong water moving over rocks. Awesome. Deafening. It marked my soul.
This Voice spoke to me. It felt like sonic waves penetrating me with each syllable. And it came right from that line in the play so many years before.

“Don’t worry, you’ll live…”

God is like that. He takes what is familiar and speaks it into our lives once again. He loves to take what we have been used to in another part of life, dust it off and use it again in our lives.
If you have been struggling with hearing his voice, realize he will often speak to you in natural ways. Look for him to recycle communications you are used to. He will speak to you in ways that are already familiar.

Lesson #5