One of the privileges of leading teams on mission trips is teaching about listening prayer. If you don’t know what listening prayer is let me introduce you.
Listening prayer is an active conversation with Father where we wait on Him to “talk” back to us. The Bible is full of stories of normal, every day people who talked to the Lord, and with whom He talked to in return. Since we know the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that He desires relationship above all, then it follows that He does still talk to His kids today. We just need to train our spiritual ears to hear.
So we look to the Bible, God’s authoritative and beautiful history and we see He spoke to a shepherd boy, a gardener, fishermen, a tent maker, even to prostitutes. So why wouldn’t he speak to a junior high kid from New Jersey or a house wife from Texas?
Now, these days telling people to listen for the voice of God may garner some strange looks. It may even make people who love Jesus think you need some heavy doses of medication, but God loves to show off His faithfulness and I have never taught this without some amazing things happening for the people who go on these trips.
In Western PA, a group of middle schoolers, and their leaders, looked at me with some real doubt as I walked them through Biblical examples of asking the Lord to speak to us. (2 Samuel 5, John 5:25, John 10:27) Then we prayed. We wrote down what stood out in our minds or burned in our hearts.
We shared our “lists” with one another and divided up into groups. I went with a small group of four and watched as God took us on a journey of discovery. Like a treasure hunt, we checked off items of our lists as we meandered through country side none of us were familiar with.
From large black bugs, bridges, zigzags (switchbacks), tall guardrails, right arrows, pheasants, ponds, and more. Things we heard or saw as we prayed we found on our journeys into and out of the city, following the direction of the Lord along the way. We even prayed at intersections so we would know what direction to take.
God showed His goodness all along the way and young and not-so-young participants watched in awe as the things they heard in prayer grabbed their attention as the day progressed.
So what is the point? It’s this: God wants such an intimate relationship with us that we know when we hear His voice. He leads us and guides us so we can always be prepared to walk in love toward anyone He puts in our path. He teaches us to listen so we can have fellowship with Him.
Are you listening?
