A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
I woke up one morning this week, feeling that I needed to call a friend who’d been going through a difficult time with her aged husband’s illness. Was it a prompting by God? I thought so. I knew it certainly wasn’t from the devil—he doesn’t want anybody doing good for anybody! So, though I felt the pressure of time because of all the things I needed to do that day, I phoned my friend. It certainly was of God, and we were both
encouraged by our conversation.
How often, in the life of the Handford family, has God blessed us because someone in our congregation followed God’s prompting and acted on it immediately.
For years I used an old manual typewriter I’d dug out of a trash barrel at work. The typeface was worn and out of line, but I was grateful for it and used it for many years. But a church member told me God had told him that day to buy me a sophisticated Selectric electric typewriter with variable type faces. I used it with gratitude until it too became obsolete, and I got a computer.
This dear man said God had told him to do it, so he acted on it that very day. But sometimes God speaks, and something infinitely more important hangs in the balance than just a kind word or a material gift.
A friend of mine was painting a room in her house. She ran out of paint, and on an early morning she went in her paint-spattered jeans to buy another can of paint. As she drove toward home, she felt God tell her to stop at a friend’s house. She thought it was too early in the morning. She feared it would be disrespectful to go in dressed in dirty clothes. But, thank God, she obeyed the prompting of the Lord Jesus. She arrived just in time to save the woman from committing suicide. It was a prompting from God, and she listened and obeyed immediately.
But I have often heard God’s quiet voice speak to me about a spiritual decision I ought to make. Had I offended someone, and should I ask their forgiveness? Had I been wronged by someone, and did I need to forgive them? Was I tolerating a sin in my life and excusing it “because I’m only human”? When I hear God’s quiet prompting, I must obey, and at once.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me . . .
Exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today”
Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
For we have become partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.
—Hebrews 3:7-14 nkjv
Thank God that He is not only our Savior who created us to give us eternal life. He is also the Friend who speaks to us over the clamor and hurry and strife in our lives. He tells us what He wants us to do for Him. There is no joy greater than that of doing God’s work in His world, with His love and His wisdom. Why would we not earnestly want to obey Him, and obey Him immediately?