Loud and Clear

Most Christians at one point or another have probably wished that God would send them a very clear, personal message to guide them when making an important decision. Even though God has never sent me a letter outlining exactly what I should do next, He certainly has worked through circumstances to send a clear message. For many years my dad had planned on serving as a missionary in Austria. When we were young, my sister and I had several ear surgeries. My dad began to wonder if moving our family to Austria was the best choice in light of the specialized medical care we needed. He prayed that if the Lord wanted us to move to Austria, we wouldn't need any surgeries during a specific time span. Prior to that my sister had undergone a major reconstruction of the bones in her middle ear. A check-up showed that the bones were out of place, and another surgery would be needed. My dad took this as the answer to his prayer for guidance that we were not to move to Austria. The day the surgery was scheduled to take place, the surgeon did one more exam and discovered everything was miraculously back in place. The Lord had sent my dad the answer without my sister actually needing to have an additional surgery.

For months I have been praying for the Lord to provide my husband with the job that would be best for our whole family. As we submitted applications, none of the schools that were our top choices invited my husband for an interview. The schools where he has interviewed were much farther down on our list, but he would have accepted an offer, if one had been made. Instead of feeling depressed that he hasn't received a job offer yet, I am trying to have faith that it means he hasn't yet interviewed at the college that would be the best for our family. As someone who doesn't like to wait until the last minute to make plans, it is hard for me to wait patiently when I realize we might be moving to another state in less than two months. Ending up at the right place is more important than getting a job offer sooner rather than later. All but two of the seventy-nine applications I've submitted thus far have gone to schools several hours from our home. We thought the local university had hired someone else, so we put our house on the market three weeks ago. Even though a few houses in our small development have sold very quickly over the past few months, we haven't had a single showing yet. This was very discouraging until three days ago when my husband recieved an invitation to interview at the local university. Maybe the Lord prevented anyone from seeing our house because He knows we don't actually need to move this summer, or maybe we will be moving to Kansas, as he had an interview with a college there yesterday afternoon. I am praying that through both the closed and open doors God will make it perfectly clear where He wants us to live. "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking." James 1:5