My first Saturday job was working for a landscape gardener. Ken was a brilliant old bloke; a gentle, wise and quietly funny scouser. We got on famously, even when I made mistakes. He once gave me some angled clippers and told me to trim the hedges in an old lady’s back garden. The tool he gave me was long and heavy and I found it strangely hard-going. He came back a couple of hours later and was horrified.
“I told you to trim the EDGES, you Muppet!” he laughed. (He had meant the edges of the lawn, NOT the immaculate hedge which I had hacked into various ugly levels, with the aid of the wrong tool.) I nearly cried. I’d wanted to impress him with my skill and industry. Now it had gone very wrong and all I had to show for it was desperately aching limbs, a bewildered privet and the bright red cheeks of shame. He had to cover my glaring mistake fast. We worked SO hard to neaten it up before the owner came back. (Who, praise the Good Lord above, was tragically short-sighted.) Oh, how we giggled on the way home….

Whenever I think I’ve heard from God, I need to check it out, especially if what I have heard may affect someone else’s spiritual ‘garden.’ Sometimes a subtlety can make a big difference. So, I’ve learnt to look for confirmation in the following ways:
1) is it backed up by scripture?
2) is it in keeping with Father’s character and His voice to me in the past?
3) does it fill me with faith and conviction in my spirit?

It doesn’t always have to make ‘human sense’ to be of God. Two days after 9.11, Father told me to take a chicken out of the freezer, make up some beds and drive to Heathrow to pick up three Americans. Sounded like nonsense. I ignored Him for a good 24 hours. But I slowly began to realise it was His voice. It’s a long and funny story, but later that day I brought home three lovely people I found at the Panam desk. We spent three wonderfully miraculous days with them, nudging them slowly back towards faith in God. (Incidently, they were not wildly carnivorous, but did eat Chicken.)

Be careful that you read that last story closely. I don’t come out of it like a saintly prophet. It makes me sad that God knew I wouldn’t obey him for a whole day and night. He orchestrated the whole situation around my disobedience and lack of faith. I learnt a big lesson that day.

When we hear from God, it’s important that we weigh it up and act on what He says. So be bold today my friend… And perhaps defrost some chicken?