Who was that still small voice?

from January 18, 2006

Last winter I’d been reading Donald Miller of “Blue Like Jazz” fame and while I didn’t always understand or agree with everything in his books, he has challenged me to re-think what I am about as a Christian and a religious person. These two terms do not have to be mutually exclusive.
If nothing else, to be more sensitive to what is happening around me and to me.
Diving right into this: I believe in prayer. I don’t understand prayer, but I believe it does something. So I pray. A lot. Everyday. I’m not an ascetic or Thomas Merton or anything weird or mystical but I do spend some times in prayer throughout the day. Everyday. Not at any specific time although taking my morning shower is usually one of those times. I also pray out loud. This can be embarrassing at times. I catch myself walking down the street with my mouth moving and … wonder what the passers-by are thinking? But something about hearing my own words helps me pray. It may also make it harder to listen; but at least not this time.
Today (OK not really today but it was today when I started writing this down) I was praying – out loud again – for my usual suspects (a short list of people with very specific needs that I manage to pray for almost everyday) when I stumbled over a name and a different name came out. Literally. My first instinct was to correct myself and move on but then I remember my first prayer instinct which is whenever, wherever God, the Holy Spirit, whoever puts a name in my head, I pray for that person. I don’t like generic prayers or to pray for people I don’t know. I’m not very good when the pastor asks us to pray for missionaries or someone I don’t know. I try to find something or someone specific that I can relate to and focus my prayer on that. Sometimes in those situations I don’t pray at all (don’t tell my pastor!) Yet I do pray for lots of people I don’t know; the young man who said hi to me from his wheelchair in Wal-Mart as we passed in the aisle. My regret? That I didn’t stop and engage him. Back to my shower experience.
Instead of correcting myself, I stopped and prayed for the name I had just spoken audibly. I didn’t know what to pray. I hadn’t spoken to this person in a couple of years. We used to work together but he moved away and our communications at best have been an annual e-mail or two and perhaps a Christmas card. So I prayed one of those generic prayers; a sort of “God Bless … (you-know-who) and help them with (you-know-what.)
A couple of hours later I am at work and a co-worker sends me an email. (Not to get hung up on the time-space-continuum thing but he had probably sent it the night before. I was reading it in the early morning.) One of those with a link to a web site embedded so all you do is click on it. He didn’t say what it was for. I clicked. Up pops a sort of yellow-pages-on-the-internet directory-listing for a company run by, you guessed it; the friend I had prayed for earlier. I guess I was not feeling very spiritual at this point (separation of church and state and all that – I work for a City government so one must be careful about those sorts of things!) so all I thought was “How ironic?” I dashed off a quick email to my friend, told him what had happened, that I prayed and all that and pretty quickly forgot about it.
Until my phone rang a few hours later. I have a little caller ID screen so I looked at the number, didn’t recognize the area code, wondered who it could be, picked up the phone, hello, etc.
“Hi, this is (insert friends name here)”. I had just eaten lunch with my wife and kids and while it was good, I was once again not feeling super-spiritual or anything. I’m back at work remember? We talk. Q&A a little etc. when he drops the bombshell. He and his wife are getting a divorce after 20 some years of less-than-wedded bliss. (Did anybody see that feather?)
My mind starts racing in two directions at once. Like I can’t believe he is saying this and I can’t believe the series of coincidences that have led to this moment. While his situation is I’m sure far from under control and I did nothing concrete to help him on the phone (What could I say except “I’m sorry”?), he admitted that between a meeting he’d had with his pastor and finding out that someone far off was praying for him (under rather unusual circumstances), maybe he needed to re-think what he was doing before making things final and irreversible. As I recall he was going to visit his attorney later in the day. He did not make that visit.
Needless to say my eyes started watering a little while I’m sitting there on the phone in the middle of this, this, thing. When we finished our phone call I had to close my office door to gather my composure. Then I had to call my wife and try to explain, “You won’t believe what just happened to me.”
Like I said earlier, I don’t know for sure who puts these ideas and thoughts in our minds and hearts. I just try to be honest and respond as best I can. I was blessed and hope I haven’t spoiled it by sharing with others but I hope somebody out there who struggles daily to depend and trust on God, can glean something of help from my simple but profound (at least for me) experience. Maybe this kind of stuff happens to you all the time. Maybe never. For me it is a once-in-awhile thing. But when it does – wow!
God can talk to me in the shower anytime. The line is open.

Postscript: As of early 2007, they have gone through some counseling but are still moving toward a divorce. Go figure!