What Do You Do, When God Speaks to You?

Does God still speak to people?



A young man had been to Wednesday night Bible Study. The Pastor had shared about listening to God and obeying the Lord's voice. The young man couldn't help but wonder, "Does God still speak to people?"

After service he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways. It was about ten o'clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, "God.. If you still speak to people speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey."

As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought, stop and buy a gallon of milk. He shook his head and said out loud, "God is that you?" He didn't get a reply and started on toward home. But again, the thought, buy a gallon of milk. The young man thought about Samuel and how he didn't recognize the voice of God, and how little Samuel ran to Eli. "Okay, God, in case that is you, I will buy the milk." It didn't seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk.

He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home. As he passed Seventh street, he again felt the urge, "Turn down that street." This is crazy he thought and drove on past the intersection.

Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street. At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh. Half jokingly, he said out loud, "Okay, God, I will". He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop.

He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi- commercial area of town. It wasn't the best but it wasn't the worst of neighborhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.

Again, he sensed something, "Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street." The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep.

He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat. "Lord, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid."

Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk. Finally, he opened the door, "Okay God, if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk. If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something but if they don't answer right away, I am out of here."

He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man's voice yelled out, "Who is it? What do you want?" Then the door opened before the young man could get away.

The man was standing there in his jeans and t-shirt. He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn't seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep. "What is it?" The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, "Here, I brought this to you."

The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway speaking loudly in Spanish. Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face. The man began speaking and half crying, "We Were just praying. We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn't have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking God to show me how to get some milk."

His wife in the kitchen yelled out, "I ask him to send an Angel with some. Are you an Angel?" The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put in the man's hand.

He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face. He knew that God still answers prayers.

Author Unknown

Fate Is In Our Own Hands

Fate Is In Our Own Hands

by Inspirational and motivational stories on Friday, February 3, 2012 at 5:14am ·

Once upon a time, there was a general who was leading his army into battle against an enemy ten times the size of his own.

Along the way to the battle field, the troops stopped by a small temple to pray for victory.

The general held up a coin and told his troops, “I am going to implore the gods to help us crush our enemy. If this coin lands with the heads on top, we’ll win. If it’s tails, we’ll lose. Our fate is in the hands of the gods. Let’s pray wholeheartedly.”

After a short prayer, the general tossed the coin. It landed with the heads on top. The troops were overjoyed and went into the battle with high siprit.

Just as predicted, the smaller army won the battle.

The soldiers were exalted, “It’s good to have the gods on our side! No one can change what they have determined.”

“Really?” The general show them the coin—both sides of it were heads.

How Failure Succeeded

How Failure Succeeded

by Inspirational and motivational stories on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 2:31pm ·

Before this, I was a very negative person with all sorts of excuses I used in my life. But things have changed after I'd watched a movie about a person who is defected that has neither legs nor hands.

He has always liked those challenging career. Till one day, he made the decision to join a wrestling game and made it as his real career. Well, it sounds weird for a defected person to fight with a normal person, right? However, his strong spirit has helped him to overcome all the negativity in his surroundings.

Finally, after 36 times of falling, bleeding and humiliating, he succeeded by winning the semi-final game. It was a quite, no, a very huge achievement for himself.

So, for us as a normal person with complete body, do we really want to quit after one or two failure? Just ask yourself and think about it.

Remember, never give up until you've lost 36 times!!

Making your mark on the world...

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

Benefits Of Being Grateful: From Gratitude Comes Great Well-Being

Most of us, at one time or another, have faced some sort of overwhelming challenge. Whether it be in business, relationships, or health – some challenges can take us for a loop, places where we don’t want to go… if we allow. We’re human – even the most seemingly, perfectly grounded person – struggles at times.

If you’ve been severely challenged or are presently worrying and stressing over a difficult situation – try showing a bit of thanks – gratitude – for all that IS working right in your life. And, build from there. Gratitude is powerful.

Attitude of Gratitude

Did you know that next to immunodepressants, gratitude heals organ transplant patients fastest? The Mississippi University for Women found out in a study that patients who kept a gratitude journal scored better in mental health tests than those who didn’t, even when they started off at the same level of mental health. They generally healed faster, had more vitality and were happier.

It doesn’t stop there – those who are unwell are not the only people who benefit from an attitude of gratitude. The debate continues as to whether material well-being and happiness makes a person grateful or whether it is the other way around.

Tests were done where participants were all of the same income level, their lives were more or less the same in terms of satisfaction and happiness and their mental health was at par.

Some were asked to keep a gratitude journal and others were asked to go on living as usual. After 2 months, the people who kept gratitude journals showed significant leaps in happiness and well-being. They said they were much more energetic and felt that they got what they wanted. They felt that they traveled towards their goals faster.

What Is The Connection Between Gratitude And Well Being?

There’s really no single explanation, but there’s agreement on one thing: the more grateful you are, the more positive you feel about life and about yourself, and the more you achieve.

Gratitude helps you see all things in their perspective. In the past, when you’ve felt grateful for something or someone – did you see how suddenly that thing’s or person’s value swelled and became even more meaningful to you?

If you wake up and immediately give thanks for a great, blue sky, you’ll notice that the day seems much richer. If you give thanks for your spouse, your brain has a way of picking it up and making you see even better things about them and this makes you feel happier. Happiness leads to well-being.

Gratitude also makes you focus on the things that you’re grateful for and you therefore attract more. It’s the old law of attraction, which holds that what you think about grows.

If you’re grateful for strong, fulfilling relationships, they tend to grow and therefore you’ll be happier. If you’re grateful for a strong business, it will grow and you’ll feel more fulfilled.

Does It Really Matter Why Gratitude Leads To Well-Being?

You now know that it does, so why not start to practice it. How would you gain from being able to put your challenges in perspective, faster? I was able to start making positive moves to create the outcome that I preferred.

Yes, it required a time commitment. In fact, as a busy woman, fitting “gratitude time” into my day was very difficult at first. But, I found the time because it was that important.

I discovered that if I wanted to do it, I had to set aside a time for nothing else but “gratitude time” and my journal had to be in a place where I couldn’t ignore it. After awhile it became my habit – the first thing I do before I get out of bed.

I think about and write down what I am grateful for. The more grateful I am, the more I have to be grateful for – the better I feel and the more productive I am throughout my day. What a powerful way to start your day!!

I encourage you to make a gratitude journal. Plan it in such a way that it’s in your path everyday and you can’t ignore it. You’ll find that after days, even just hours of your first journaling, your perspective will be different and you will have given yourself more time to go forward and focus on what matters most.


Spiritual & Emotional Healing Resources:

Working With and Healing Your Inner Child & Inner Adolescent – The happier your childhood, the less of a problem you’ll now have with your inner child. Because he or she will be happy and content to stay in their own world. Conversely, the more pain you went through then, the more problems you’re likely to have now. These two complete visualization meditations can be the first step in going back and healing that childhood, and that adolescence. The first one guides you to meet and interact with your inner child. The second guides you to similarly work with your inner adolescent.

Healing Your Ego  – You need a strong, healthy, positive ego to function in life. To do that, first you need to take back the power you’ve given it. And then follow specific technique to heal it. Heal your wounded ego with these three audio files on healing your ego and returning it to its rightful place – as a servant who delivers information to you.

The Magic Of Forgiveness – Forgiveness is the only key that opens the door to a life free from emotional and mental pain. Release the burdens of your past and present that haunt you, end the emotional pain you feel in your heart, ‘take a shower on the inside’ – cleaning out all the gunk that’s stuck within you.

EDUCATION DOES NOT MEAN GOOD JUDGEMENT

There is a story about a man who sold hot dogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers . He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hot dogs. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more meat and got himself a bigger and a better stove. As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened. The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?" The father replied, "No, but tell me about it."

The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad time." The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, and listened to the radio, he ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day, the father cut down his order for the meat and buns, took down the sign and was no longer enthusiastic. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hot dog stand.

And his sales started coming down rapidly. The father said to his son, "Son, you were right. We are in the middle of a
recession. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Negative motivation brings the desire to take the easier way which ends up being the tougher way.

Internal motivation comes from within, such as pride, a sense of achievement, responsibility and belief.

A beautiful story - The Blind Passenger

The passengers on the bus watched sympathetically as the attractive young woman with the white cane made her way carefully up the steps. She paid the driver, using her hands to feel the location of the seats, walked down the aisle and found the seat he'd told her was empty. Then she settled in, placed her briefcase on her lap and rested her cane against her leg.

It had been a year since Susan, thirty-four, became blind. Due to a medical misdiagnosis, she had been rendered sightless, and she was suddenly thrown into a world of darkness, anger, frustration and self-pity. Once a fiercely independent woman, Susan now felt condemned by this terrible twist of fate to become a powerless and helpless burden on everyone around her.

"How could this have happened to me?" she would plead, her heart knotted with anger, but no matter how much she cried, protested, ranted or prayed, she knew the painful truth that her sight was never going to return. A cloud of depression hung over Susan's once optimistic spirit. Just getting through each day was an exercise in frustration and exhaustion. And all she had to cling to was her husband Mark.

Mark was an Air Forces officer and he loved Susan with all of his heart. When she first lost her sight, he watched her sink into despair and was determined to help his wife gain the strength and confidence she needed to become independent again.

Mark's military background had trained him well to deal with such sensitive situations, and yet he knew this was the most difficult battle he would ever face.
Finally, Susan felt ready to return to her job, but how would she get there? She used to take the bus, but was now too frightened to get around the city by herself. Mark volunteered to drive her to and from work each day, even though they worked at opposite ends of the city.

At first, this comforted Susan and fulfilled Mark's need to protect his sightless wife who was so insecure about performing the slightest task. Soon, however, Mark realized that this arrangement wasn't working, it was hectic and costly.

'Susan is going to have to start taking the bus again' he admitted to himself, but just the thought of mentioning it to her made him cringe, she was still so fragile and so angry. 'How would she react?' he admitted to himself again.
Just as Mark predicted, Susan was horrified at the idea of taking the bus again. "I'm blind!" she responded bitterly "How am I supposed to know where I'm going? I feel like you're abandoning me".

Mark's heart broke to hear these words, but he knew what had to be done. He promised Susan that each morning and evening he would ride the bus with her, for as long as it took, until she got the hang of it. And that is exactly what happened.

For two solid weeks, Mark, military uniform and all, accompanied Susan to and from work each day. He taught her how to rely on her other senses specifically her hearing, how to determine where she was and how to adapt to her new environment.

He helped her befriend the bus drivers who could watch out for her, and save her a seat. He made her laugh, even on those not-so-good days when she would trip exiting the bus, or drop her briefcase. Each morning they made the journey together, and Mark would take a cab back to his office.

Although this routine was even more costly and exhausting than the previous one, Mark knew it was only a matter of time before Susan would be able to ride the bus on her own. He believed in her, he used to know before she'd lost her sight, who wasn't afraid of any challenge and who would never, ever quit.

Finally, Susan decided that she was ready to try the trip on her own. Monday morning arrived, and before she left, she threw her arms around Mark, her temporary bus riding companion, her husband and her best friend. Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude for his loyalty, his sincerity, his patience and his love. She said good-bye, and for the first time, they went their separate ways. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, each day on her own went perfectly, and Susan had never felt better. She was doing it and she was going to work all by herself.


On Friday morning, Susan took the bus to work as usual. As she was paying for her fare to exit the bus, the driver said "Boy, I sure envy you" Susan wasn't sure if the driver was speaking to her or not. After all, who on earth would ever envy a blind woman who had struggled just to find the courage to live for the past year?.

Curiously, she asked him "Why do you say that you envy me?" The driver responded "It must feel so good to be taken care of and protected like you are". Susan had no idea what the driver was talking about, she asked him again "What do you mean?" .

The driver answered, "You know, every morning for the past week, a fine looking gentleman in a military uniform has been standing across the corner watching you when you get off the bus. He makes sure you cross the street safely and he watches you until you enter your office building. Then he blows you a kiss, gives you a little salute and walks away. You are one lucky lady" .

Tears of happiness poured down Susan's cheeks. For although she couldn't physically see him, she had always felt Mark's presence. She was fortunate, so fortunate, for he had given her a gift more powerful than sight, a gift she didn't need to see to believe, the gift of love that can bring light where there had been darkness. You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her.
God watches over us in just the same way. We may not know His presence, and we may not be able to see His blessed face, but He is there nonetheless!.

GIVE AND IT WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU...