How God spoke in 2006

I realize that when I talk a lot about what God has done, I speak about signs.  God does things every day without us asking signs to know for sure if it is at His hand. 

I remember a time I was going to the Mennonite church and it seemed that God was using the pastor to give me the answers to my questions that I had each week.  It happened at the Adventist churches too, but more so during the beginning of my experience.  I would ask a private question and it would be directly answered during the sermon that was addressed to all.  I never told the pastors what questions I had in my heart as I read at home.

One time, I went to church and the pastor was talking to me.  He told me to check out a specific verse when I had the opportunity.  He wrote it down on a piece of paper and I walked off with others to do something in the kitchen.  Later that same day, I was home in my apartment and was very tired.  I went to sleep on my sofa and had a dream. 

In the dream, I was somewhere and needed to do something with my phone (check the time or something).  I opened my flip phone that I had at the time and it didn’t respond as I expected.  I saw a message scroll across the screen and from the wording, it was something I knew in my heart, God was sending to me.  I flipped closed the phone and opened it up again and the message was no longer there. 

Suddenly, I woke up from the dream.  I was bothered by it because I didn’t understand what it meant.  I had no nightlight in the room and couldn’t see, so I reached for where I remembered I placed my cell phone on the table.  I picked it up and flipped it open for it not to react.  That never happened before.  I closed it and then the outer light came on.  I opened it up again and it was fine, but no message was there. 

Now I was even more confused especially because this phone never had a malfunction like this before….except in the dream I just woke up from.  I was too lazy to get up to turn on the light so I decided to use the light from the cell phone to shine on my bible that was sitting also on the table.  I opened up the bible and prayed for a message of peace because I was so bothered by what just happened.  I turned to a random section of the bible and began reading under the cell phone light and as I read the passage, I began to feel better.  The verses I read gave me the peace I needed.  Then I had a thought.  How about I find that piece of paper my pastor gave me to look up a certain verse.  I looked for the paper and saw the verse.  I then looked to my bible to realize, the first spot that I randomly selected in my bible, the starting verse WAS the exact same verse he wanted me to read. 

It was Jeremiah 29:11.

God speaks to us in different ways.  It can be through people or the actions of people who are not even aware they are being used for His purpose.  It can be through the answering of prayer,  asking for signs, perhaps even an audible voice like Saul and others experienced in the bible.  It can also be simply by reading the word of God. 

There were other times God directed me to read a passage in response to situations in my life or questions I had about living better for Him.  But this one sticks most in my memory because of how dramatic it was.