Here am I Lord – Send Someone Else

I guess we have all heard of some well-meaning person telling another that they have a message from the Lord for them. Being a cautious type of guy, my first thought would be that in Old Testament times, people were stoned for giving a prophetic message that did not come to pass or that was not from the Lord.

Now to add to my conservatism I had a number of experiences where someone had given false hope to someone with some seemingly inaccurate word from the Lord. My wife had a very close friend who had breast cancer. The cancer went into remission and then, as often happens, it came back with a vengeance. I remember one time touching her shoulder and feeling the many lumps that had spread to her neck and shoulders. A woman in her church gave her a message “from the Lord” that she would be healed but a short time later she was gone.

I can’t condemn someone like the lady above who in good faith felt she was right about the message she was conveying, but I would never want to give someone a wrong or presumptuous message.  Enter my friend from work.

In the interest of confidentiality (the message was for him only) I’m not going to reveal what God spoke to me about this person and it is not important other than to say it was a blind spot in his life. A blind spot, or spots, as we each have in our lives.

At first I wondered if I should say anything to him about it at all. After all, he had many other Christian friends and coworkers. Surely they could see this too and they would mention it to him. Then all the confirmations came along. I went to church and the Pastor’s message confirmed to me that I needed to share with my friend. It almost became humorous after a while. Everywhere I went there was another confirmation that I needed to share with him. This went on for three long weeks. But I was frightened. How would he respond? I finally got to a point where I guess I hardened my heart to what God was leading me to do. I let my fears of giving him the wrong message and the incidents like the one above stop me from following God’s voice. I guess that God wanted me to trust Him and deliver the message as much as He wanted my friend to receive it.

So, in a way, I was like Jonah on the way to Tarshish and resisting what God wanted me to do. In Jonah’s case God sent a great big fish and in my case His solution was similar. God sent a great big Oldsmobile. I sat stuck in afternoon traffic on the 91 freeway in my small economy car. I watched in my rear view mirror as the large 1980’s vintage Oldsmobile got bigger and bigger. I was like a sitting duck and there was no place to run and no place to hide.

The Olds hit my car going about 30MPH faster than I was without hardly even hitting the brakes.  As my head slammed into the head rest, my little car almost flew up in the air from the impact and then landed and stopped just short of the other cars in front of me. It was all over in a few seconds.  

Not long after I got home, I pondered if this accident was connected to my unwillingness to do what God wanted me to do. No, of course not.  God wasn’t sending me a more persuasive message in addition to all the multiple confirmations He had already given me. It was just a coincidence. Then I began to think how many more coincidences like this did I need to endure before I would just head to Nineveh?

I picked up the phone and called my friend. I told him we needed to get together and talk about something that I didn’t want to tell him on the phone.  I had to admit to him that the Lord had spoken to me many times about something I needed to communicate to him. It was uncomfortable to admit that I had been withholding a message from God. I felt like a postman that had not been delivering the mail but hoarding it. Just that admission was hard. Then my friend said he would not wait. He wanted the message now on the phone.

I gave him all my reasons of why I had been reluctant to share this and how I would never want to make him feel like I’m judging him, etc, etc. I guess I almost felt like I was giving him all the legal boilerplate you seen in a contract.  Your mileage may vary, this message from God may not be applicable in all states, etc. But my friend just wanted the message. I told him the message and that was that. He received it well and began to consider how changes could be made. What I could have done three weeks before and one car ago took only a few minutes.

What followed next was God’s final blow to humble me. My friend said that he knew that God had a message for him and he had been waiting for it. God had sent him word ahead that a message was coming. He had been waiting patiently for this imperfect messenger.

I guess that I have always believed that if I don’t do what God leads me to do, He will just find someone else and I will only miss out on the blessing. The story of Jonah, and my experience in this situation, refutes that conclusion. We may be the messenger of choice to bring His message to another or the vessel of choice for a specific task. If we turn tail and head the wrong way, He may let us run for a while.  But, watch out for Oldsmobiles!

Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Church
Riverside, CA