"G.o.d did whisper to me once," Jane wrote in her email reply. "I'm absolutely sure of it." Shortly after her husband pa.s.sed away, she was in bed crying herself to sleep-again-and sensed G.o.d offering specific words to soothe her soul. "You are not alone," he said, which was all Jane needed to know. Hearing from the One who never will leave your side stems loneliness every time.

Another woman, Lisa, said she knows G.o.d spoke to her too. She had been prompted to start a Mothers of Preschoolers group at Willow but was unsure of her skills and available time. Still she pressed on, believing it was what G.o.d had asked her to do. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until she was due to give a talk at the first meeting of the year.

"I seriously thought I was going to be sick," Lisa wrote. "I had prayed and prayed for weeks beforehand, and had prepared carefully, but now that the occasion was upon me, my throat was closing up."

Moments before Lisa was to take the stage, she sensed G.o.d say, "Lisa, you've done the faithful work of preparation. Now all you have to do is go out there and open your mouth. Once you do that, I'll take it from there."

With renewed confidence, Lisa walked out on the stage and gave a talk that ministered to many young mothers.

Jill used to work at a Fortune 500 company. At one point, she was given a special project that had her reporting directly to the CEO. Suffice it to say, with visibility like that, the pressure to "get it right" was intense. The project timeline was aggressive, and the people involved disagreed at every turn. Partway through her leadership of the project, Jill began to unravel.

"One day I went into the ladies' room," Jill said. "Given that I worked mostly with males, this was the safest place to fall apart. But in the midst of that river of tears, I sensed G.o.d's whisper to me: 'Be still and know that I am G.o.d,' he said. And then he whispered it a second time."

From that moment until the end of her project, whenever Jill faced seemingly overwhelming stress, rather than falling apart she would focus on the reality of G.o.d's presence in her life. This provided her a "still" center from which she could continue her work.

And then there was Jeanne, who said she clearly heard G.o.d's voice in the midst of her company's layoffs. "I was so concerned about my work status that I was having trouble sleeping," she said. "I would play out hypothetical scenarios over and over again: What if I lost my job? What if I couldn't afford rent? What if I wasn't able to find employment again? What if? What if? What if?"

Suddenly G.o.d cut through the noise in her head and simply said, "Worry not." It was such a straightforward and obvious solution, but it made all the difference that night. Two simple words: Worry not!

Many of the stories I received showcased G.o.d's tenderness toward his followers. A woman named Susan received this type of whisper from G.o.d at a Cubs game, of all places.

"The bases were loaded," Susan said, "and all of a sudden I was aware of how many people were sitting inside that stadium. There were a lot. I then thought about how many people were in the city, the state, the nation and the world. Again, a lot! Too many people to count, even.

"In that moment, and for the first time in a long time, I considered the fact that despite all of those people to care for, G.o.d was aware of me. He whispered, 'I know all about you, every detail of your life. And I love you.'"

Just as G.o.d was imparting this message to Susan, the Cubs. .h.i.t a grand slam, which explains to me why the memory was so vivid-the Cubs never hit grand slams.

A Willow dad named Paul wrote in and said, "My family and I were on vacation on the island of Kauai when I decided to take a hike by myself. I got to the top of a mountain and sensed G.o.d's presence in such a strong way that I stopped moving altogether and listened for what he was trying to say."

Paul and his wife had just adopted a baby boy named Evan, and what G.o.d conveyed to him that day was this: "As much as you love your brand-new son, I love you infinitely more."

The realization almost melted Paul, a man who had never considered G.o.d's love in that way. All Christ-followers could use reminders like that.

Reading through all of the email replies was like riding an emotional roller coaster-one minute I was soaring on people's highest highs and the next minute the bottom would fall out. A woman at our church named Candace wrote about an excruciatingly painful situation she had endured, resulting from some bad choices she had made. "I kept waiting for some horrible consequence to my sin," she said, "thinking that the shame I was experiencing was going to be with me the rest of my life."

Then she came across Romans 8:34, which says, "Who can say G.o.d's people are guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead, and now he is on G.o.d's right side, appealing to G.o.d for us" (NCV).

Candace said, "As I read those words, I sensed G.o.d saying, 'My conviction is not meant to crush you. I will not let you be destroyed by the feelings you are carrying over your sinful situation. You have my word.'"

I devote an entire chapter of this book-chapter 6, "Light for Dark Nights of the Soul"-to this idea that G.o.d meets us at our deepest point of need. Candace's experience proves that, as do the next two that you'll read.

A woman wrote to tell me that earlier this year, her husband of thirty-five years committed suicide. She heard a gunshot, she ran into the room where he had been and she found her beloved husband dead on the floor. He had no history of depression, no known illness and no obvious cause for wanting to die. And yet now he was gone.

Two hours after she discovered her husband's lifeless figure, and in the midst of a flurry of emergency-personnel activity, she was walking through the foyer of her home toward the kitchen when something almost tangibly stopped her short. "It was like a force actually prevented me from moving," she said. "Once I was perfectly still, I felt a warm, almost liquid feeling move from my head all the way to my toes."

She went on to explain that there in the foyer, G.o.d whispered, "I will walk with you." There was no a.s.surance of a quick walk, an easy walk or a pain-free walk. But even if the walk proved long and agonizing, she knew that her G.o.d would be by her side, every single step of the way. Today, this faithful woman is involved in Willow's grief-support workshops. She says that although there are sad moments and difficult days, she lives with a heart that is open to G.o.d and to whatever he might say.

I don't know what a story like this does to you, but it does wonders for my faith. Hearing how G.o.d is upholding a brokenhearted sister in Christ reminds me how ready he is to steady me too.

One more, and then we'll move on.

A man named Troy in our congregation responded to my plea for G.o.d-whispers with a story that truly was incredible to read.

Several summers ago, Troy arrived home on a typical Friday afternoon. He had endured a rigorous week at work as a day trader and decided to jump on his motorcycle and head to his health club so he could relieve a little stress. As he describes it, minutes after that seemingly innocuous decision, Troy found himself lying in the intersection of two neighborhood roads, his skull fractured and his brain exposed. He had been hit by a sixteen-year-old girl who pulled out from an adjacent gas station and into oncoming traffic before looking both ways. Witnesses relayed that the girl had been fighting with friends in her car over a cell phone. Her blood tests later came back positive for various illegal drugs.

After someone called 911, a fatality crew was deployed to the scene. Troy doesn't remember seeing anyone from that crew; he only remembers a woman kneeling over him, grabbing a shirt from his gym bag and holding his head together in a makeshift tourniquet until "official" help arrived. "The only thing she said to me was, 'Can you lift up your head?' I told her that I thought I could, but then I blacked out."

The woman would be unaccounted for in the police record, but Troy knows she was present that day-G.o.d's whisper of tender care sent in the form of a mystery woman with a crumpled shirt holding up his wounded head. "By G.o.d's grace I recovered from that incredible ordeal, and by his Word my heart was healed too. When I think back on that situation, I recite Psalm 3:3: 'But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the one who lifts my head high.'"

For guys like Troy-and people like you and me as well-I imagine there is nothing like being pa.s.sed out on death's doorstep to reveal what we really believe about G.o.d. In those harrowing moments and in mundane ones too, I hope we'll remember the truth. He is the lifter of our heads and our hearts.

Whispers of Admonition

If there's ever a time when you and I employ "selective listening," it's when we're on the receiving end of a dressing-down, courtesy of G.o.d himself. Have you noticed this dynamic along the way? G.o.d suggests that you stop doing something or start doing something or, for once in your life, act your age, and instantly, G.o.d gets tuned out. "Surely that piece of insight wasn't from G.o.d" you think. "I was probably just making it up."

You go on your pre-planned way, thinking everything is copasetic once more, until minutes or days or a few weeks later, when you careen face-first into the brick wall known as G.o.d's wisdom, and realize it was his voice you actually ignored.

As I scrolled through hundreds of emails from our congregation, I was impressed by how many of these G.o.d-whisper stories dealt with tough, admonishing promptings. It takes real maturity to make significant changes in our lives, but for those who are gutsy enough to do so, rich blessings await.

If you're up for a challenge, I dare you to read the brief stories that follow and then give G.o.d your wide-open ear. It just might be that he has a few love-fueled rebukes lined up for you as well.

"I GREW UP IN A FAMILY WHERE YELLING WAS PROTOCOL, AN accepted behavior," Linda writes. "If something happened that was aggravating, or if an honest mistake was made, we didn't talk about it. Instead, someone just yelled.

"As a young mother of two toddlers, I never hesitated to raise my voice at spilled milk, upended dishes or unexplained crying from my little girls. One evening as I was preparing dinner, the girls were playing in the food pantry-stacking cans, in an attempt, evidently, to climb to heaven and see our dog that recently died. Somehow, in the midst of their childlike construction project, a large container of vegetable oil opened and oozed out everywhere-on clothes, hair, little fingers and feet, and through the cracks of the beautiful wood floor.

"I turned from the stove where I was cooking and literally was about to verbally pounce at my daughters with a raised and angry voice. But in the split second it took for me to turn, I distinctly heard G.o.d's voice say these words: 'Linda, no more yelling. Deal with the situation. Correct the children, but do so without ranting.' In that moment I found myself incapable of raising my voice and unable to find disparaging words. To this day, it's almost physically impossible for me to erupt in anger. Thank you, thank you, G.o.d."

As I read Linda's story, I thought, "The fact that she heeded just one simple whisper during a critical moment likely will change her family's legacy forever." Amazing what can happen when one believer listens to G.o.d.

Other examples of succinct whispers radically altered their recipient's errant att.i.tudes. Fara wrote in to tell me about the first time she sensed G.o.d "speak."

"I was in my car, crying over a painful breakup I'd just gone through, and felt devastated at a deep level. I wasn't even a Christian yet, but for some reason, I cried out, 'G.o.d, why does it hurt so much when I'm just trying to love someone?'

"I wasn't really talking to G.o.d, but to my surprise he is the one who answered me. 'Fara,' he said, 'that's exactly how I feel when I keep trying to love you.' Thud. That one hit dead center."

Fara soon surrendered her life to Jesus Christ and as a result, began to hear from G.o.d far more frequently.

A woman in Australia named Liz recounted the experience of hearing G.o.d's admonishing whisper after visiting the brand-new home of her sister-in-law. "After I left," Liz wrote, "I sat in my car outside and felt deep pangs of jealousy and self-pity welling up. I wanted the beautiful home and perfect furnishings that my sister-in-law now enjoyed, but as soon as I let myself entertain those thoughts, G.o.d broke in with a simple request: 'Liz, make me your treasure,' he said. 'I am everything you need.'"

A covetous heart had been rebuked and redirected with a single whisper.

Donna also received words of admonishment, in the midst of tough economic times. She wrote: "It was becoming more apparent that my husband's construction/remodeling business was not going to make it through the downturn, and my own job at a commercial-construction firm would be ending soon as well. I desperately tried to find a new job that would prevent us from losing our home, but after many failed attempts things only became worse.

"Bills I couldn't pay stacked up as my fears multiplied and my anxiety level reached an all-time high. It was in the middle of that reality that I heard a whisper, straight from G.o.d. 'Stop striving,' he said. It wasn't a suggestion; it was a command. 'Stop striving. Stop striving to work so hard. Stop striving to fix this situation. Stop striving to fix your husband. Stop striving and just trust me.'"

Donna did just that and for the first time in a long time, she felt sweet relief from stress. Note again that her circ.u.mstances had not changed. She was still facing serious financial challenges. She still had to look for a new job. But the destructive inner anxiety that drove her obsessive striving had lessened. Such whispers have rescued me from destructive levels of stress more times than I can count.

AFTER DONNA'S EMAIL, AN INTERESTING TRIO OF EMAILS caught my eye. They all had to do with receiving admonishment from G.o.d, but it was the conduits for those corrections that were fascinating to me. One of them came via Oprah Winfrey, one through an iPod, and one by way of a Hawaiian pastor I happen to know and love.

Here's what d.i.c.k wrote: "Fifteen years ago I was a practicing alcoholic. One day I was working out and saw Oprah on TV. Her guests were an alcoholic and a physician, and she was trying to facilitate healing for the addict that day. It was the start of four or five random occurrences like that, where I'd be flipping television channels and happen upon someone who also was struggling to find sobriety. After that troublesome sequence, I sensed G.o.d say, 'I've shown you the source of your problem. What will you do with what I've revealed? The ball is now in your court.'"

The next night d.i.c.k showed up at a Christian twelve-stepministry meeting at Willow and has been sober ever since. What's more, as a result of that initial divine encounter, d.i.c.k surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and was baptized in June of that year. Only G.o.d.

A young woman named Keri Lynn wrote to tell me that G.o.d spoke to her through her iPod. I raised my eyebrows in skepticism, until I got to the details of what happened that night.

"My parents were away for the weekend," she wrote, "and I was driving home from a friend's house late at night. I was on the back roads, which can get a little twisty, and eventually made my way to Elbow Road, a street where lots of people sadly have died from taking the curves too fast.

"I admit I was a little preoccupied, and as I rounded the elbow that gave the street its name, I took the bend a bit too sharply. I hadn't noticed my speed until my iPod shuffled to the song, 'Real Gone,' from the Disney movie, Cars. The lyrics talk about slowing down before you crash, and as I sang along to the catchy tune, I realized it was advice I should immediately take.

"I looked down at my speedometer and took things down a notch (or ten). When I looked back up, I saw a truck barreling toward me from the other side of the road. The load it carried was oversize and barely could fit on one side. I inched to the right to give him more room, but the shoulder was uneven and rough." The truck pa.s.sed, but Keri Lynn was not out of the woods yet.

"As soon as I heard my right tires. .h.i.t the gravel, I knew things would not end well," she continued. "The wheel jerked out of control, and before I could grab it to steady it again, my car swung wildly to the left, onto the other side of the street. In a matter of seconds I careened headfirst into the far-left ditch, flew back out of that ditch and somehow came to a dramatic stop. I stepped out of my car unharmed, which is when I saw a ma.s.sive telephone pole up ahead. Who knows the damage I could have done if I had not slowed down? And who knew G.o.d spoke through iPods?" Keri Lynn surely feels he did.

The third story was from Cathie, a woman who had a difficult relationship with her mom. "In her heart I know she loves me," she explained, "but growing up it didn't feel that way because of the choices that she made."

Cathie had not spoken to her mom for six full years and said that the Mother's Day card she would send each year was the only communication they had. "I kept praying that G.o.d would change her," she said. "I can't tell you how often I prayed that prayer, but still, G.o.d chose not to act."

At the end of that six-year run, Cathie was at church one weekend and heard a friend of mine named Wayne Cordeiro speak. "He challenged us all to read our Bibles daily," Cathie remembers, "and my husband and I decided to give it a try. We read every morning and every night, and over time I noticed that something was shifting in me regarding my mother. Was G.o.d answering my prayers through his Word?

"Shortly after that experience my mom became a widow. In the clearest prompting I have ever received, the Holy Spirit instructed me to write her a letter that would hopefully encourage her sad heart. Slowly, she and I began to write each other back and forth until the day dawned when I realized that G.o.d hadn't answered my prayers by changing my mother; he had answered them by changing me."

Cathie admits that her relationship with her mom is still fragile. But she is quick to add that she knows as long as she stays tethered to the power of G.o.d's Word, his Spirit will have room to work. You and I both could probably learn a thing or two from Cathie's example.

THERE ALSO WERE STORIES THAT CENTERED ON G.o.d'S DESIRE to be first in his children's hearts. Tara recounted, "I gave my life to Christ at a young age but drifted away from him during my college years. After graduation, I moved away from family and friends, stopped attending church altogether and began making poor choices with my life. I longed for intimacy with G.o.d but couldn't seem to get out of my own way. It went on like this for two years before I stepped foot inside a church again-this time with my family at Christmas. During the singing portion of the service, I sensed G.o.d almost audibly say, 'Enough!' He said it over and over again, to the point that I literally was shaking where I stood. G.o.d had a purpose that I wasn't fulfilling in life, and I knew my only option was to surrender to him for real.

"After that worship service, my 'next steps' became perfectly clear. I knew I needed to move back to the Midwest, I knew I needed to find a new job and I knew I needed to get connected with a local church. And that's exactly what I did."

In another case, a guy at Willow named Jim said that on the heels of his wife's untimely death from ocular melanoma he decided to take his RV from Ohio to Colorado. He felt stuck in the overwhelming pain of fresh grief and thought it might help to get away for a while. On the first Sunday morning of his trek, he found his way to a local church. Though he felt disconnected from G.o.d, he yielded to his habit of church attendance. While singing half-heartedly during a congregational worship song, Jim felt as if G.o.d were saying, "If you cannot worship me with all that you have, do not worship me at all. I do not want your halfway heart."

As Jim then engaged with full voice, he felt his heart settling back into the full devotion to G.o.d that he had known in the past. As he sang, his tears flowed freely and his grieving soul was steadied once more.

I received other stories of admonishment-how G.o.d corrected a course, reversed a deadly habit, asked for fuller commitment from one of his kids-and each time I'd get to the end of the story, I would think of the power of going G.o.d's way in life instead of insisting on following our own path. Before you get to the final story, please carefully read this next phrase: There is no more critical goal in life than to keep a pliable heart before G.o.d.

G.o.d cannot be seen by spiritual eyes that are shut.

G.o.d cannot be heard by spiritual ears that are plugged.

And G.o.d cannot be followed by a heart that stubbornly stays hard.

A WOMAN NAMED JAN SENT IN A STORY THAT WAS SOBERING to read. When Jan was only eighteen years old she decided to get married. "I knew the guy was someone I should not have married," she wrote, "but I was young and thought that 'love' would make everything right."

The night before the wedding, during the dress rehearsal of the big event, Jan felt a "very strong prompting" from the Holy Spirit that she should call the whole thing off.

"I did not listen," she said. "And for many, many years after that decision, I found myself stuck with a husband who was emotionally abusive, a practicing alcoholic and extremely fond of being with women besides his wife."

I got to the last line of Jan's email and just sat there staring at the screen. She wrote, "I thought you might like to hear from someone who refused to listen to G.o.d."

I don't know the rest of Jan's story. I do know that G.o.d is in the business of redeeming the messes we make in life, but that doesn't mean there is not a price to pay-often a very steep price-for ignoring G.o.d's whispers of counsel. I don't know how Jan has experienced G.o.d's redemptive intervention in her life, but I am confident she has learned a vital lesson: that many of G.o.d's whispers are offered to save us from difficulties and pain that we don't have the wisdom or maturity to foresee. I pray that we will all keep that lesson in mind.

Whispers of Action

Divine promptings that spur you to action are some of the most important words you'll ever hear. I can remember times when G.o.d prompted me to write a letter, place a call, avoid a particular route home, give a job candidate a shot, engage a grumpy neighbor in friendly conversation and more. Sometimes the whispers are fairly involved and sometimes they're short and sweet. On more occasions than I can possibly count, his most profound words of needed wisdom have been one-word commands like "Go!" or "Stop!"

A terrifying example of this happened one time when I was in my car in our driveway. Running late for a meeting at church, I threw my car into reverse and was backing down toward the street, when I received a very strong prompting from G.o.d. "Stop. Right now!" he urged.

I slammed my foot on the brake and then sat there, thinking, "Did I forget something in the house? Was Lynne supposed to come with me?"

Figuring I must have just gotten my wires crossed, I glanced in my rearview mirror and was lifting my foot off the brake as I caught sight of our neighbor's three-year-old son, who was riding his tricycle right behind my car. He was so close that all I could see was the top of his little blond head, and had I not stayed planted on those brakes, he surely would have been seriously injured or killed.

I put my car in park, rested my head on the steering wheel and said, "Oh, G.o.d, that you would be this merciful to that child and to both of our families is beyond me. Thank you."

Minutes later my neighbors expressed equal grat.i.tude as I stood on their porch with their son and explained the narrow escape.

How important are whispers of action? I'll let you be the judge.

By far the most common stories I received from folks at Willow dealt not with words of a.s.surance or admonition but with whispers that prompt action in accomplishing kingdom good. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are G.o.d's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which G.o.d prepared in advance for us to do," and it seems that one of the primary ways G.o.d helps us to get these good works done is by divinely guiding our steps.

So what do "good works" look like? Based on the hundreds of emails I scoured, they include healing a relationship, impacting a neighborhood, encouraging a friend, expanding a horizon, giving tangible resources, seizing opportunities to serve, sacrificing comfort and more. I wish I had room to share every story I read, because by the end of our time together I think you'd be revved up to go out and do some good!

What follows are a few excerpts, arranged in general categories. As you take in each story, ask G.o.d if there is a "good work" in this area that he'd like for you to complete. Everyone below testifies that there is no better feeling in all of life than being used for good by G.o.d.

Relational Actions