“Suddenly I Felt God Telling Me”
The tales too often told
We have all heard the stories. You can’t be an evangelical very long before they become part of your psyche, the background music to your faith.
A dramatic script
ACT 1. The teller recalls how they were just doing some mundane thing, like driving down the road or shopping in the supermarket. Then suddenly, in this most unlikely of places, the Lord starts calling them.
Lord, right here, right now, really?
We laugh. Or depending on the teller’s tone, we gasp. And they push on, describing how not only was God bothering them at this most inconvenient time, but he was telling them to do a most inconvenient thing. It was something like, “give 50 dollars to the woman over there in the tight red shorts,” or “go to that bus stop and offer that guy there a ride to wherever he needs to go.” Another variant is to become a missionary, start some kind of ministry, or found a church.
ACT 2. At this point, some tellers will interject humor into the story. They describe how they gave God excuses or tried to talk him out of it, adding some pungent commentary or an embarrassing description.
So, there I am, in the middle of Tesco in my Sunday suit, pushing a wad of cash at this scantily-clad woman.
We laugh, because we so get it. Or they will describe a dark night of the soul in which they realize they’ve been a bad disciple and that this is God throwing them a lifeline back into his good graces.
And I said Lord, I do love you, can you ever forgive me? And he said ‘if you love me, you will obey me.’
Act 3. Now comes the after-tale, when the teller meets up with the woman from Tesco some years later at a Christian conference or retreat. She recalls that fateful day and tells him she was homeless and pregnant at the time. If she was going to have enough money for a cab back to the shelter, she would only have enough left to buy food for half of the coming week.
And though she was not a believer at the time, for some reason she had prayed that day, just to make it through the week. That $50 saved her. It started her journey towards salvation, and just look at her now!
Or the after-tale is the present, with the mission, church, or missionary program thriving to the glory of God, who miraculously produced all the funds and cleared the way for all it is.
Ain’t God great?
Hearing is believing
It’s miraculous. It’s proof that prayer can be answered, and God does still work among us. Whenever we falter or suffer from doubt, all we have to do is replay that refrain and it chases the darkness away.
But is it true?
Obviously, the only people who will ever know the extent of truthfulness in these stories are the tellers themselves. We can give them the benefit of the doubt, but we can also notice patterns.
- There are no witnesses. The lady in the supermarket? She’s living in another state now, not a part of this community. And the guy at the bus stop? He also became a Christian because of that experience and later became a traveling evangelist. Traveling everywhere, apparently, but here. And the call to establish a ministry? That was just between God and the teller.
- The teller is a leader. How often do we hear this story from an ordinary person in the pews? We don’t. It’s told by pastors, youth group leaders, Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, professors at Christian colleges, best-selling Christian authors, Christian podcast hosts, and traveling evangelists. It’s a tale of the teachers, not the students.
- The story affects us in predictable ways. We’re so impressed, so reinforced in our faith. We see that God talks to the teller and that the teller has brought someone to Christ or established a great ministry. But God doesn’t talk to us, and we have probably done neither of those things. So, the teller is way closer to God than we are. We should therefore listen to the teller, as they are obviously speaking for God.
Fairy Tales
What if the stories are true?
What if the god of the Bible, who abandons billions to earthly suffering and eternal torment for not being evangelical Christians, really does pick and choose a few unbelievers to benefit from one of these dramas?
And what if, from among his favorites — the evangelical Christians — he picks an even choicer few to speak to directly, giving them specific instructions and magical support to do great works for him?
We all like to be special. We all like to be chosen. Secretly, there’s a Cinderella hiding in all of us. Maybe one day, if we keep slogging away at this slippery thing called discipleship, we too may get asked to the ball. And then just think, we can be the exalted one telling other hopefuls about how God spoke directly to us while we were standing in line at the bank.
Just don’t think too hard.
