The Braxtons of Miracle Springs (18 page)

All the way home from church, Christopher was real quiet. It was hard not to think it had something to do with me, even though my brain told me it surely didn't.

As soon as we got home he saddled up his horse.

“I'm going for a ride, Corrie,” he said somberly.

“Christopher, what is it?” I asked.

“Avery's sermon really got into me,” he said. “I've never heard another man preach quite like he has recently.”

“But, Christopher, I've heard you say almost the same things.”

“Perhaps. But hearing them from someone else always makes it slightly different. Something has come over Avery that is powerful. I don't know about anyone else, but I was sitting there riveted to his every word. It is just how I wanted my preaching to effect people—convict them deeply so they would be able to live their faith practically. Now his preaching is doing just that to me!”

“What does that have to do with going for a ride?”

“I have to be alone, Corrie. I have to do what Avery said. There are some things I have been struggling with. I have to ask what God wants me to do. I have to know what his will is. I can't just listen to a sermon like that and then not apply it where I most need the Lord's direction in my own life.”

He wheeled the mare around and rode off.

Christopher was gone two hours. When he walked into the bunkhouse, I could tell he was temporarily at peace, but his red eyes showed that whatever he was going through was a struggle that went deep.

“Can't you tell me what it is?” I asked.

“Not yet, Corrie,” he replied. “I'm sorry, I just can't.”

An awkward silence followed. He sat down. I fixed a pot of coffee and began heating up some cold stew I had saved him from dinner. Gradually we began to talk and found ourselves discussing the sermon we had heard that morning.

“Do you really think,” I asked, “that people are as inexperienced as he said at asking for and then listening to God's voice?”

“Yes,” replied Christopher thoughtfully, “I suppose I do. I'm not sure I could think of a single individual whom I knew in my church back in Richmond who ran his or her life that way. I'm not saying there were none, only that I didn't know of them—they didn't make that aspect of their walk with God known to me.”

“It would seem that asking God what he wants and then waiting for him to tell you would be the most normal part of being a Christian.”

“It was for Jesus. But it's not nearly so natural for us.”

“Why?” I asked. “Is it because we aren't trained to hear God's voice like Rev. Rutledge said this morning?”

“We don't train
ourselves
in it. Usually our own wills are so involved that we place ourselves in a position where it will be very difficult to hear when the Lord does speak. When one's own will remains strong, prayers may go up, but a thick brick wall remains that can prevent the still, small voice from penetrating. That is why so many pray, yet hear little from God. It takes an abandonment of what
I want
to enable one to detect what
God wants
.”

“How do you abandon what you want? It seems like a contradiction.”

“Just as Jesus did. His prayer in the garden represents the climax of the biblical account and the Gospel story—
'Father, not my will but your will be done.'
What happened on the cross the next day, in a sense, was only the natural working out of that prayer. Theologians may disagree with me, but I believe the victory was won in the garden even more significantly than on the cross. Jesus' own will was utterly abandoned, laid down, relinquished. Thus was Satan defeated. And therein was our Lord's very practical example given to us.”

“How is that an example to us? We won't face what Jesus did.”

“Not many will be called upon to die on a cross, that is true. But we are
all
called to the garden with Jesus.”

“You mean to give up our own wills?”

“Exactly! To lay down what we want in favor of what God may want. When we do as he did, and pray the prayer he prayed, and mean it—then is Satan defeated in our lives too. The enemy cannot touch us when our wills are abandoned into the Father's.”

Christopher sighed. “But I'm no better off than my former parishioners,” he said. “I certainly didn't hear much from God this afternoon. And I don't
know
whether or not my own will in the matter has been relinquished.”

“But you heard what Rev. Rutledge said, that God's answers take time. What did you expect, an instant answer?”

Christopher laughed.

“I suppose I fell right into the trap he warned about,” he said. “Good old impatience . . . though I have already been praying about the question for some time.”

It was quiet for a while. I could tell Christopher was thinking. A moment later a little smile came to his lips.

“What?” I said.

“I was just thinking about how you and I met,” replied Christopher, now smiling in earnest, “how we came to love each other.”

“What could that possibly have to do with all this?” I laughed.

“Everything!” Christopher replied. “Don't you see—it's wonderful how it all ties in. God led us together, right?”

I nodded.

“But not by miracles and trumpets—”

“It was sort of a miracle,” I said.

“You're right,” Christopher laughed, “but it happened more through quiet ways that worked themselves out in our daily lives. It's just like Avery was saying—you have to wait patiently for the still, small voice to speak.”

“I'm still not sure quite how it all ties in.”

“I believe in miracles,” said Christopher. “But I believe that God's normal mode of working in most lives is quiet and almost invisible, that the most important spiritual growth occurs not through observing or even participating in signs and wonders, but through the quiet and invisible obediences of a life lived in ongoing, moment-by-moment relinquishment of the will. We grow as we make Jesus' garden prayer the undergirding perspective of our entire being,
‘Father . . .
your
will be done.'
Therein do the roots go down that will produce a life of maturity and wisdom and fruitfulness in the kingdom. Therein are sons and daughters fashioned into the likeness of Christ.”

I tried to take in the magnitude of Christopher's words. Sometimes he could say such beautiful things about how God worked!

“So you see,” he went on, “you and I were both going about the work we had been given to do until the day came when I suddenly found you lying beside the road unconscious. Neither of us could have known that our lives would be changed forever by that moment. We were not aware that God was making his will known right then. But I believe God was able to work so profoundly through that moment because we had both previously given direction for our lives to him. That is what enabled him to do it.”

“Now,” I said, “what does all that have to do with this morning's sermon?”

Again Christopher laughed.

“You are
not
going to let me off until you find out what it is that I have been praying about, are you?”

“All is fair in love and war, as they say.”

“This isn't war.”

“But isn't all fair in love and theology too? Haven't I heard you say that?”

“I've never said such a thing!” laughed Christopher.

“Well, it
sounds
like something you would say,” I rejoined.

We joked a little more, but then the conversation grew serious once again.

“Do you think very many of the people who were there this morning will do what Rev. Rutledge suggested?” I asked.

“I don't know. It may be more than we think. I have been very impressed with the general spiritual maturity in Miracle Springs. I can tell that Avery Rutledge has been steadily adding meat to the spiritual diet of his flock, probably for years.”

“Rev. Rutledge is a remarkable man,” I said. “Everyone for miles has grown to love and respect him as much as anyone in the community.”

“But about what you asked—there are only two people in that congregation for whom we are responsible, and that is us. Why don't we make sure we apply what he said and don't just analyze it? Why don't we each take something to the Lord that we are wondering about and ask him what he would have us do? Then as time goes on we can share with each other how it feels when we think God is answering. Maybe we can learn more about listening to his voice from each other.”

“Good idea. But I thought that's what you were already doing this afternoon.”

“I was. But believe me, I have plenty of things I can ask the Lord about!”

We fell silent for five or ten minutes and both just talked silently to the Lord. I asked him what he wanted me to do and say to Jennie. Did he want me to speak to her about marriage, about trying to love Tom and be patient with him . . . or did God want me just to be a friend but not offer any counsel or advice?

“Not only is hearing God's still, small voice vague, quiet, invisible, and subtle, exactly as Avery pointed out,” Christopher said reflectively after a while, “it is a very
personal
process. Every man or woman has to learn the particulars of how God's voice speaks to him or her on his own. Someone else can only point in general directions and say how it feels
to him
. But everyone has to learn to detect that voice for himself. It will have different subtle nuances for each. What did you ask him about? if you feel comfortable telling me.”

I told him about my concern for Jennie.

He gave a little laugh. “I guess Jennie and Tom are important to us,” he said. “I asked him about Tom. I just don't know how to get on any footing with him. Are we supposed to say anything, do anything? Or should I just let events take their course? I don't know. That's where I need some guidance, too.

“I suppose that is another reason why there are no lists of instructions—God desires to speak to each question in a unique way. Circumstances vary, and personalities vary. It's wonderful, isn't it! You have to learn to hear his voice because it's going to have a slightly different sound in
your
ears than anyone else's. That's how personal is God's love for you, that he will speak to you and me as he speaks to no one else in all the universe.”

“But what if God doesn't speak?” I said. “There have been lots of times I have prayed and never did feel like I received an answer.”

“We have to remember that there are times when God
won't
speak. If his will is clear, then we're wasting our breath asking him to show us more specifically what he wants us to do. Sometimes it is obedience that is required, rather than prayer for additional leading.”

Christopher paused reflectively.

“I remember a young woman in my church in Virginia,” he said. “She wanted to do something she knew was wrong. The Bible made that clear. Yet she kept praying that God would let her do what she wanted to do.”

“What happened?”

“Eventually she convinced herself that God was speaking to her in confirmation that he was leading her.”

“She went ahead?”

Christopher nodded.

“And you don't think she heard from God?”

“What she did was contrary to Scripture. God does not contradict himself.”

“How do you know if it is really God's voice you heard or your own desires interfering with the process? Seems like it would be easy to fool yourself.”

“You have to confirm what you think you've heard with all the other ways God speaks. Is it consistent with advice and counsel you have received from wise people? Does it make good common sense? Is it a
sound
decision? Does it seem to fit with circumstances or go contrary to other things God has been doing in your life? And especially—is it consistent with Scripture?

“God never contradicts himself, as I said before. So if he has spoken, he will gradually confirm what he has said in all these other ways. If there is conflict anywhere, it may well be that it is not God's voice you heard at all. God's true voice may be faint and indistinct at first, but it will steadily grow more clear through our lives as we practice and as we obey what he tells us to do.”

As if talk of obedience had stirred him to some action, Christopher got to his feet, then reached down to grab my hand and pull me up, too. He draped an arm around my shoulder as we went out through the bunkhouse door. I circled my arm around his waist, and by silent agreement, we started walking up the trail that led to the mine.

We didn't say anything for a long time. We were both caught up in our own thoughts and our silent prayers. I must admit I was still worrying a little about whatever it was that was bothering Christopher. But I was also praying silently about turning that worry over to the Lord. And I was enjoying the walk, just being out under the bright blue sky and looking around at our familiar land and being close to the man I loved.

Finally, as we were nearing the mine, Christopher spoke.

“I am very grateful for Avery's talk this morning. Sometimes we know bits of information, but they are like a map to a gold mine that three or four partners have torn in pieces to insure its safety. Their pieces can get each of them close but they need the whole map to fit together correctly to see the entire picture. I feel like Avery's teaching us that simple prayer and then his counsel to wait has perhaps been one of the missing pieces of my own map.”

I didn't answer, just walked along beside him, wondering if maybe I had found a piece of my own map as well.

No matter what
, I thought,
I have a lot to think about
.